MONUMENT  TO  JOHN  BOYLE  O’REILLY, 

BY  DANIEL  C.  FRENCH: 

ERECTED  IN  THE  FENWAY,  BOSTON,  MASSACHUSETTS. 


/" 


( 

<* 


The  Appreciation 
of  Sculpture 


A HANDBOOK 


By 

RUSSELL  STURGIS,  A M.,  Ph.D. 

Fellow  of  the  American  Institute  of  Architects , Member  of 
The  Architectural  League  of  New  York,  The  National 
Sculpture  Society,  The  National  Society  of  Mural 
Painters,  etc.,  etc . Author  of  “How  to  Judge 
Architecture ,”  “Dictionary  of  Architec- 
ture and  Building “ European 
Architecture etc.,  etc . 


NEW  YORK:  THE  BAKER  & TAYLOR  CO, 
33-37  East  Seventeenth  St.,  Union  Sq.,  North 


Copyrights  1904*  By  The  Baker  & Taylor  Co. 


Published^  September , igo# 


GREENWICH  PRINTING  COMPANY 
NEW  YOBK 


Contents 


L The  Greek  Standard  of  Ex- 
cellence ....  11 

II.  Greek  Culmination  and  De- 
cline   29 

III.  The  Eoman  Empire  and  Early 

Egypt 51 

IY.  The  European  Middle  Ages  . 71 

Y.  The  Italian  Eeyiyal  . . 89 

YI.  Italian  Decadence — French 

Transition  ....  115 

VII.  Eecent  Art,  Part  I,  Form  . 133 

VIII.  Eecent  Art,  Part  II,  Senti- 
ment   151 

IX.  Eecent  Art,  Part  III,  Monu- 
mental Effect  . . . 182 

X.  Eecent  Art  Compared  with 

Greek  Standard  . . . 207 

Index 227 


[5] 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/appreciationofsc00stur_0 


Illustrations 


i. 

ii. 

ii. 

iii. 

IV. 

Vc 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

VIII. 

ix. 

x. 

XI. 


XII. 

XII. 

mt 


Monument  to  John  Boyle  O’Reilly, 


by  Daniel  C.  French  . 

Frontispiece 

Two  Slabs  of  the  Celia  Frieze 

of  Parthenon 

Facing  Page 

M 

A.  Grave  Stele  in  Central  Mu- 
seum at  Athens 

€€ 

> 

a 

> '5 

B.  Relief,  a dancer,  found  in 
Theatre  of  Dionysos,  Athens 

€€ 

a 

Statue  from  East  Pediment  of 

Parthenon,  called  Theseus 

a 

a 

1 6 

Statue  from  West  Pediment  of 

Parthenon,  called  Ilissos 

a 

a 

17 

Draped  Statues  from  East  Pedi- 

ment  of  Parthenon 

a 

a 

26 

One  Caryatid  of  the  Erechtheion, 

on  the  Acropolis  at  Athens  . 

€i 

€€ 

27 

Hermes  of  Praxiteles  at  Olympia, 

€€ 

€€ 

30 

A.  So-called  Antinous  of  the 

■\ 

Belvedere;  Vatican  Museum, 

Rome  .... 

€f 

€€ 

- 31 

B.  So-called  Mercury ; British 

Museum  .... 

€€ 

€€ 

So-called  Niobide,  in  the  Vati- 
can Museum 

€€ 

€€ 

^6 

So-called  Venus  of  Milo,  in  the 

Louvre  .... 

€€ 

a 

27 

So-called  Venus  of  the  Capitol 
in  the  Capitoline  Museum, 

Rome  . 

€€ 

a 

SO 

A.  So-called  Junius  Brutus  in  the 
Louvre  .... 

■> 

B.  So-called  Germanicus  in  the 
Lateran  Museum,  Rome 

4 :c 

a 

► 5* 

Portrait  statue  of  a Roman  youth 

in  the  Louvre  . „ **  « 


[7] 


Illustrations 


XIV. 

Relief  Sculpture  : Marcus  Aure- 
lius offering  sacrifice  . . Facing  Page  59 

XV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

A.  Terminal  Figure,  Flute 

Player  .... 

B.  Terminal  Figure,  Satyr,  of 
Roman  Epoch  . 

Statue  of  Cheferen  . 

e« 

ft 

tt 

it 

«f 

ft 

►64 

65 

XVII. 

Wooden  Statue,  found  in  a tomb 
in  the  Necropolis  of  Memphis 

ft 

Sf 

68 

XVIII. 

Pylon  of  Temple  of  Horus  at 
Edfoo  .... 

tt 

ft 

69 

XIX. 

Statues  of  Chartres  Cathedral, 
west  front  . . 

ft 

tt 

76 

XX. 

A and  B.  Statues  of  Chartres 
Cathedral,  west  front 

ft 

it 

77 

XXI. 

Statues  of  Reims  Cathedral, 
middle  doorway  of  west 
front  .... 

tt 

it 

80 

XXII. 

Sculptures  in  Abbey  Church  at 
Solesmes  .... 

n 

tt 

81 

XXIII. 

The  Visitation,  by  Luca  delia 
Robbia,  at  Pistoja 

ft 

ft 

92 

XXIV. 

Relief  Sculpture  by  Mino  da 
Fiesole,  at  Florence  . 

tf 

tt 

93 

XXV. 

The  Pieta,  by  Michelangelo,  in 
the  Church  of  St.  Peter, 
Rome  .... 

ft 

tf 

98 

XXVI. 

Tomb  of  Lorenzo  dei  Medici, 
by  Michelangelo 

ft 

tt 

99 

XXVII. 

Two  Statues,  by  Sansovino : 
Minerva  and  Apollo,  at 
Venice  .... 

tt 

tt 

1 10 

XXVIII. 

Statues  by  Giovanni  da  Bologna 
in  Loggia  dei  Lanzi,  Florence, 

ft 

tt 

in 

XXIX. 

Statue  of  Daniel  the  Prophet,  by 
Bernini  .... 

ft 

tt 

122 

XXX. 

Tomb  of  Cardinal  Mazarin,  by 
Coysevox 

tf 

e« 

123 

XXXI. 

A.  Statue  of  Mercury,  by 
Pigalle  .... 

ft 

\ 

«« 

> 1 28 

XXXI. 

B.  Statue  called  Despair,  by 
Perrault  .... 

ft 

€9 

4 

[8] 


Illustrations 


XXXII. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 

XLIV. 
XLIV. 
XLV. 
XL  VI. 
XLVII. 


A.  Statue  of  Diana,  by 

Houdon  . . . Facing 

B.  Statue  of  Philopcemen,  by 

David  d’ Angers  . . “ 

Statue,  A la  Terre,  by  Alfred 
Boucher  . . . t( 

The  Driller,  Statue  by  Chas. 

H.  Niehaus,  from  Drake 
Monument  at  Titusville, 
Penna.  . . . . ** 

Group,  “ Au  But,”  by  Alfred 
Boucher  . . . . “ 

A and  B.  Small  Statue,  “ une 
Danaide,”  by  Auguste  Rodin,  “ 
Half-length  group.  The  Grac- 
chi, by  J.  B.  C.  E.  Guil- 
laume . . . . €€ 

Group  of  Lions,  by  A.  N. 

Cain  . . . . “ 

Decorative  Figure,  The  Bull, 
by  Jacquemart  . . . “ 

Portrait  Statue  of  the  Prince  of 
Conde,  by  Caniez  . . “ 

Monument  to  Gaspard  de 
Coligny,  by  Crauk  . . “ 

Bronze  Statue  of  Michelangelo, 
by  Paul  Way  land  Bartlett  . “ 

Alto  Relief,  called  “ La  Mar- 
sellaise,”  by  Rude  . . “ 

A and  B.  The  Four  Quarters 
of  the  World,  by  J.  B. 
Carpeaux  . . . “ 

A.  The  Plaster  cast  as  ex- 
hibited . . . . “ 

B.  The  Bronze  in  Luxembourg 

Garden  . . . . “ 

Group,  Apres  le  Travail,  by 
Lefeuvre  . . . “ 

Statue  or  group,  Dans  la  Rue, 
by  Camille  Lefevre  . . “ 

Group,  The  Readers  of  Dumas, 
by  Gustave  Dore  » . “ 


Page 


> 129 
138 

!39 

H4 

H5 

146 

H7 

150 

>5* 

152 

*53 

156 

*5  7 

164 

165 
566 


[9] 


Illustrations 


XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 

LII. 

LIII. 

LIV. 

LV. 

LVI. 

LVII. 

LVIII. 

LIX. 

LX. 

LXI. 

LXII. 

LXIII. 

LXIV. 


Relief,  The  Army,  by  Frederick 

MacMonnies  . . Facing 

Statue,  Military  Courage,  by 
Paul  Dubois  . . . M 

Le  Monument  des  Morts,  by 
Albert  Bartholome  . . “ 

Group,  Saint  Veronica,  by  Carli,  “ 
Portrait  Statue  of  the  Physician 
Phillipe  Ricord,  by  Barrias  . “ 

Portrait  Statue  of  Horace  Greeley, 
by  J.  Q.  A.  Ward  . . “ 

Portrait  of  the  Painter  Jean  Leon 
Gerdme,  by  Carpeaux  . “ 

Relief,  by  Jules  Dalou ; Mirabeau 
answering  Dreux-Breze  . “ 

Monument  to  the  Empress 
Augusta,  Berlin,  by  Schaper,  “ 
Relief  forming  memorial  of 
Robert  Gould  Shaw,  by  Saint 
Gaudens  . . . . “ 

Fontaine  Moliere,  Paris  . . “ 

Monument  to  the  Empress  Maria 
Theresia,  Vienna  . . “ 

Monument  to  Admiral  Farragut, 
by  Saint  Gaudens  . . “ 

Corning  Fountain  at  Hartford, 
Connecticut,  by  Massey 

Rhind  . . . . “ 

Statue,  Athlete  and  Serpent,  by 
Lord  Leighton  . . . “ 

Statue,  called  the  Borghese 
Gladiator,  Louvre  Museum,  “ 

A and  B.  Torso  of  the  Belve- 
dere, Vatican  Museum  . “ 


Page  1 67 

“ 172 

“ >73 
“ 1 76 

“ 1 77 

“ 178 

" 179 

“ 182 

" 183 


192 

1 93 

*94 

l9S 

198 

199 

218 

219 


[10] 


THE  APPRECIATION  OF  SCULPTURE 


i 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  GREEK  STANDARD  OF  EXCELLENCE 

Following  the  method  used  in  another 
hand-book  of  this  series,  it  will  be  well  to 
take  as  our  starting-point  that  sculpture 
which  is  the  most  generally  recognized  as 
without  fault,  humanly  speaking,  and  even 
without  serious  short-coming.  All  works 
of  art  lack  something  of  perfection,  obeying 
in  this  the  common  law  that  you  cannot 
get  this  without  losing  that : but  the  sculp- 
ture of  the  Greeks  in  the  works  of  greatest 
importance,  as  produced  between  the  ex- 
pulsion of  the  Persians  from  Greece  in  479 
b.  c.  to  the  death  of  Praxiteles,  which  we 
may  put  at  350  b.  c.,  has  been  accepted  as 
more  nearly  faultless  than  any  other  class 
of  works  of  fine  art.  Within  those  130  years 
were  produced  sculptures  which  the  world 
[11] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  artists  has  recognized  with  what  amounts 
almost  to  unanimity  as  works  admitting  of 
no  unfavorable  criticism. 

And  yet  at  this  very  moment  of  our  in- 
quiry the  difficulty  of  forming  positive 
and  final  opinions  and  the  necessity  of 
holding  our  judgment  plastic,  as  it  were, 
and  free  to  be  modified,  is  seen  in  this  ; that 
it  is  quite  well  known  that  all  these  works  of 
sculpture  were  elaborately  painted,  except 
when  executed  in  the  first  place  in  material 
of  some  chromatic  interest.  If  they  were 
of  bronze  they  had  eyes  of  another  material, 
of  glass  or  natural  semi-precious  stone,  and 
the  hair  and  jewelry  at  least  were  gilded  ; if 
they  were  of  marble  they  were  painted  in 
brilliant  colors.  Hermes  was  made  nearly 
red  as  to  his  flesh  and  vari-colored  as  to  his 
scant  drapery ; Bacchus  was  still  more 
brilliantly  colored,  with  a flesh-tint  of  more 
positive  red  ; the  female  statues  were  painted 
a paler  color,  and  that  with  a purpose  as 
deliberate  and  a conventionalism  as  uni- 
form as  are  seen  in  the  polychromatic  wood- 
cuts  of  the  Japanese.  Drapery  was  not 
[12] 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

left  to  the  simple  effect  of  the  folds  as 
carved,  but  the  painted  pattern  of  the  sur- 
face, or  at  least  of  the  border,  was  carried  in 
and  out  of  the  folds  to  emphasize  their  hol- 
lows and  projections,  and,  to  that  extent 
at  least,  to  produce  a nearly  realistic  effect. 
These  things  being  so,  it  is  clear  that  the  pure 
white  statue  of  our  times  hardly  existed  for 
the  Greek  of  the  time  of  Pericles,  or  for  him 
of  the  time  of  Demosthenes : and  therefore 
it  appears  to  us  clear  that  our  own  concep- 
tion of  the  perfect  human  work  in  sculpture 
is  not  altogether  that  which  the  Greeks, 
our  recognized  masters,  had  of  their  own 
work. 

It  does  not  follow  from  this  that  the 
modern  world  is  wrong  in  setting  up  as  its 
own  standard  these  early  Grecian  works  as 
we  have  them.  The  modern  world  has  no 
conception  of  what  the  full  effect  of  poly- 
chromatic statuary  and  relief  was,  in  an- 
cient times,  or  of  what  it  might  be.  A few 
nineteenth  century  and  twentieth  century 
works  exist,  in  which  applied  color  is 
used  : and  a few  in  which  beautifullv  col- 
[13] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

ored  natural  material  has  been  em- 
ployed : — onyx  and  chalcedony,  ivory,  gold 
and  bronze ; but  these  are  looked  upon  as 
vagaries,  as  pleasant  whims  of  an  able  man 
taking  his  pleasure,  and  they  do  not  weigh 
with  our  generally  accepted  views  about 
sculpture.  The  modern  world,  then,  the 
world  of  people  who  have  cared  about  fine 
art  and  have  discussed  it  with  one  another 
since,  let  us  say,  the  time  of  Eugene  Dela- 
croix, who,  three  quarters  of  a century 
since,  was  arguing  questions  of  form  and  of 
the  treatment  of  form  with  his  brother  art- 
ists— the  modern  world  is  not  wrong  in  re- 
ceiving, as  its  standard  for  the  present  and 
future,  the  now  uncolored  statuary  and  re- 
lief which  it  has  treasured  up,  and  which 
it  finds  on  the  whole  superior  to  anything 
which  has  been  done  since  in  the  same  di- 
rection. Indeed  it  is  inevitable  that  this 
art  upon  which  all  European  arts  of  form 
have  been  based,  should  remain  the  ac- 
cepted model  of  all  perfection.  We  do  not 
know  all  that  a Greek  artist  had  in  his 
mind  ; be  it  so  ! That  which  we  still  have 
[14] 


Plate  I. — SLABS  OF  THE  CELLA  FRIEZE  OF  THE  PARTHENON;  WORK  OF  ABOUT  43O  B.C.  EAST  FRONT,  NO.  6, 
DIVINITIES;  A GODDESS  AND  PERHAPS  POSEIDON,  AND  DIONYSOS.  NORTH  FRONT,  NO.  6,  YOUTHS  CARRY- 
ING WATER  JARS,  AND  ONE  STOOPING  TO  RAISE  HIS  JAR.  ACROPOLIS  MUSEUM  AT  ATHENS. 


riate  II  B. — RELIEF,  A DANCER,  FOUND  IN  THEA- 
TRE OF  DIONYSOS,  ATHENS,  NOW  IN  CENTRAL 
MUSEUM  THERE;  WORK  OF  ABOUT  3£0  B.  C. 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

of  his  workmanship  remains  superior  in 
pure  form  to  that  which  we  find  else- 
where. 

These  statues  and  reliefs  are  not  so  numer- 
ous as  one  is  apt  to  suppose ; for  our  mu- 
seums are  so  full  of  much  admired  classical 
sculpture  that  we  hardly  stop  to  reckon  up 
the  very  small  number  of  pieces  of  supreme 
excellence.  And  these  are,  for  relief  sculp- 
ture, first,  the  bas-reliefs  from  the  Parthe- 
non (see  Plate  I)  of  which  some  are  in  the 
British  Museum,  unfortunately  under  glass 
(as  indeed  the  climate  and  the  smoke  make 
it  necessary  that  they  should  be),  some  in 
the  Museum  on  the  Acropolis  at  Athens 
and  some  still  in  the  building ; second,  the 
alto-reliefs  from  the  Parthenon,  the  famous 
Metopes,  of  which  a dozen  are  in  such  con- 
dition that  they  still  tell  for  what  their 
sculptor  meant  by  them  ; third,  some  of 
the  grave-stelai  found  in  the  famous  burial 
ground  outside  the  walls  of  Athens,  which 
are  now  for  the  most  part  removed  to  the 
Central  Museum  of  that  favored  town ; 
fourth,  a few  pieces  to  be  found  here  and 
[15] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

there — two  in  the  Museum  at  Naples,  one 
in  the  long  Chiaramonti  Gallery  in  the 
Vatican,  one  or  two  in  the  Villa  Albani ; 
fifth,  the  more  perfect  slabs  of  the  frieze 
of  Phigalia  now  preserved  in  the  British 
Museum ; and,  sixth,  the  reliefs  of  the  tem- 
ple and  parapet  of  Athena-Nike,  on  the 
Athenian  Acropolis.  There  are,  of  course, 
some  pieces  of  approximately  perfect  work 
— of  work  only  one  degree  less  precious 
than  the  few.  There  is  the  long  frieze  of 
Trysa,  found  near  the  modern  town  of  Asia 
Minor  called  Gjolbaschi ; there  are  four  or 
five  still  intelligible  of  the  high  reliefs  in 
the  metopes  of  the  Theseion  at  Athens ; 
there  are  the  slabs  from  the  Nereid  Monu- 
ment at  Xanthos,  and  a morsel  or  two  from 
Epidauros ; there  are  many  votive  reliefs 
and  a collection  of  sculptured  archives — of 
documents  inscribed  on  marble,  with  sig- 
nificant relief  sculpture  at  top  ; nor  is  it 
easy  in  the  case  of  any  given  comparison 
that  might  be  set  up,  as  in  the  fine  Stele 
of  Mynno  in  the  Museum  of  Berlin  or 
either  of  those  shown  in  Plate  II,  to  say 
[16] 


Plate  III. — STATUE  FROM  EAST  PEDIMENT  OF  PARTHENON,  NOW  IN  BRITISH  MUSEUM;  CALLED  GENERALLY 
THESEUS.  WORK  OF  ABOUT  43O  B.  C. 


Plate  IV. — STATUE  FROM  WEST  PEDIMENT  OF  PARTHENON,  NOW  IN  BRITISH  MUSEUM;  CALLED  GENERALLY 
ILISSOS.  WORK  OF  ABOUT  43O  B.  C. 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

that  it  is  inferior  to  some  of  the  pieces 
named  in  the  first  instance.  Whether  of 
the  highest  or  of  a possibly  secondary  merit, 
there  are  relatively  but  few  of  these  price- 
less relics  of  the  sacred  period,  480-350  b.  c. 

So  as  for  statuary  and  sculpture  “ in  the 
round,”  we  have  not  such  an  excessive 
amount  of  unmistakably  perfect  work  in 
recognizable  condition  : nor  even  very  much 
of  secondary  work  of  the  great  period. 
There  are,  first,  the  statues  from  the  pedi- 
ments of  the  Parthenon,  the  two  reclining 
male  figures,  one  from  the  eastern,  one  from 
the  western  pediment,  in  common  nomen- 
clature “ Theseus  ” and  “ Ilissos  ” (see  Plates 
III  and  IV),  and  several  draped  female  fig- 
ures grouped  or  single  (see  Plate  V) ; sec- 
ond, the  caryatides  of  the  Erechtheion  (see 
Plate  VI) ; third,  the  “ standing  ” or  “ rest- 
ing ” Discobolos  of  the  Vatican  ; fourth,  the 
helmed  statue  at  the  Louvre  called  the  Mars 
Borghese ; fifth,  the  Victory  of  Paionios 
found  at  Olympia  ; sixth,  one  or  two  of  the 
draped  marine  divinities  (so  called)  which 
sit  between  the  columns  of  the  Nereid  Mon- 
[17] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

ument ; and  seventh,  the  Hermes  of  Prax- 
iteles (see  Plate  VII).  Those  are  all  of  the 
highest  order  of  art : and  a few  original 
pieces  of  less  dignity  or  less  importance  to 
us  moderns,  remain  : such  as  the  six  draped 
women  ( danseuses  ?)  of  the  Naples  Museum, 
all  found  arranged  in  stately  order  in  the 
peristyle  of  that  famous  villa  at  Hercu- 
laneum. Such  an  original  we  may  have, 
also,  in  the  Amazon  of  the  Berlin  Museum  : 
but  the  existence  in  the  Capitoline  Museum 
and  in  the  Vatican  of  two  other  statues, 
differing  but  slightly  in  character,  and  of 
nearly  equal  merit,  tends  to  a conclusion 
that  all  three  are  copies,  or  studies,  of  a lost 
original,  perhaps  the  wounded  Amazon  of 
Polykleitos,  made  famous  by  Pliny.  The 
lovely  draped  female  statue  recently  set 
up  in  the  Berlin  museum,  and  published 
by  Collignon,  belongs  in  this  list — unless 
it  should  be  placed  among  the  master- 
pieces. 

There  is  still  a whole  class  of  sculpture  of 
the  time  of  Phidias  which  is  undoubtedly 
original,  and  Greek,  but  not  of  supreme 
[18] 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

excellence.  This  is  the  archaic,  the  visibly 
and  admittedly  archaic  work  : for  it  is  the 
great  glory  of  Phidias  that  he  and  his  school 
brought  early  sculpture  out  of  archaism  to 
faultless  excellence.  The  pediment  statues 
of  the  temple  of  Zeus  at  Olympia  are  of  this 
still  archaic  style.  There  are  other  pieces 
which,  as  to  their  original  conception,  are 
undoubtedly  of  this  period  and  of  first-rate 
masters  too,  but  which  are  known  to  us  by 
statues  which  are  not  surely  the  originals. 
It  is  easy  to  see  how  a splendid  and  famous 
original  work,  if  a statue  of  life  size  or 
larger,  would  be  copied  accurately,  now  and 
then,  and  followed  rather  closely  a hundred 
times,  in  a period  which  found  sculpture  its 
foremost  means  of  expression.  Also  it  is 
easy  to  understand  that  a type  like  that  of 
the  wounded  Amazon,  sure  to  be  popular, 
would  be  studied  again  and  again  by  artists 
of  different  epochs — different  lands — dif- 
ferent traditions — and  presented  anew,  in  a 
changed  attitude ; a new  rendering  of  the 
theme.  Such  a piece  is  each  one  of  the 
good  copies  (supposed)  of  Myron’s  famous 
[19] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Disk-thrower, — that  in  the  Vatican,  wrongly 
restored,  or  that  in  the  Palazzo  Lancellotti 
(formerly  Massimi).  Again,  the  Athlete 
dropping  oil, — he  of  the  Munich  Glypto- 
thek  ; the  Pallas- Athene  of  the  Dresden 
collection ; the  spear  bearer  (Doryphoros) 
of  the  Naples  Museum ; the  fillet-binder 
(Diadumenos)  of  the  British  Museum  ; each 
one  is  apparently  such  a copy  of  a very 
great  original  of  Phidian  time.  Then,  of 
the  time  of  Praxiteles,  closing  the  epoch 
which  we  have  taken  (480-350),  there  are 
copies  of  what  must  have  been  grand  sculp- 
tures. The  bronze  “ Apollino  ” of  the  Uffizi 
is  such  a statue ; the  “ Sophocles  ” of  the 
Lateran  Museum  is  one,  if  it  is  not  an 
original,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the 
“ Euripides  ” of  the  Villa  Albani  and  the 
u Demosthenes  ” of  the  Vatican.  The  statue 
of  Bacchus  in  the  Museo  delle  Terme  is  also 
such  a copy  : a very  excellent  one,  never 
quite  finished.  Those  are  not  the  pieces  to 
which  we  can  refer  with  entire  confidence 
as  to  their  actual  merit ; as  to  the  supreme 
excellence  of  the  marble  figure  before  us. 

[20] 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

The  most  nearly  perfect  copy  of  a perfect 
statue  is  not  necessarily  endued  with  all 
the  charm  of  its  original ; indeed  it  is  nearly 
certain  to  lose  something  in  refinement  of 
modelling.  In  a history  of  sculpture  men- 
tion of  such  pieces  is  in  order,  and  pic- 
tures of  them  may  also  be  given  as  illus- 
trating the  style  of  the  epoch  : but  a history 
of  sculpture  allows  for  difference  of  quality 
— for  degrees  of  merit — and  records  merely 
the  facts,  which  are  sometimes  unfavorable 
to  the  piece  of  work  under  consideration. 
For  our  present  purpose,  which  is  the  col- 
lating of  the  pieces  which  have  in  nearly 
faultless  completeness  all  the  merit  of  the 
art  of  the  epoch  we  are  considering,  there 
are  but  few  busts,  even  fewer  statues,  and 
many  magnificent  reliefs.  The  reliefs,  at 
least,  cannot  be  copies : they  were  made 
for  and  remained  in  the  temple,  the  ceme- 
tery, the  market-place.  The  slabs  of  the 
Parthenon  frieze  in  the  British  Museum 
make  up  a length  of  240  feet,  out  of  about 
523  feet  which  was  the  length  of  the  frieze 
when  intact.  One  beautiful  slab,  seven 
[21] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

feet  long  and  filled  with  exquisite,  draped 
female  figures,  is  in  the  Louvre.  All 
but  one  of  the  slabs  of  the  western  face 
are  still  in  the  building.  In  the  Acropolis 
Museum  at  Athens  are  a few  noble  slabs 
from  the  east  and  south  frieze ; among 
them  the  two  shown  in  our  Plate  I,  a photo- 
graph made  when  they  were  first  discovered 
and  cleaned,  and  before  the  little  museum 
building  had  been  finished. 

The  metopes  of  the  Parthenon  are  in 
very  high  relief — the  highest  relief — that 
which  involves  the  total  separation  of  cer- 
tain parts  from  the  background.  There 
were  ninety-two  of  them  once,  and  even 
now  there  remain  fifty-seven,  most  of  them 
still  in  the  building.  Indeed,  there  are 
only  sixteen  of  these  slabs  preserved  out- 
side of  Athens.  The  votive  reliefs  on  the 
Acropolis  and  those  of  the  Central  Museum 
on  the  road  to  Patissia,  the  famous  tombal 
slabs  from  the  cemetery  at  the  Dipylon, 
most  of  which  have  been  removed  to  the 
Central  Museum,  and  those  which  still 
remain  in  the  Theseion,  or  in  the  ceme- 
[22] 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

tery ; all  these,  added  to  the  Parthenon 
sculptures  and  the  Nike  sculptures,  go  to 
make  of  Athens  the  capital  of  Europe  for 
original  Greek  reliefs  of  the  best  time.  The 
London  display,  in  spite  of  its  superb  show 
of  nearly  half  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon, 
is  still  inferior  in  variety,  in  amount,  in 
the  dim  light  of  the  badly  ordered  gallery, 
and  in  the  necessity  already  alluded  to,  of 
covering  the  reliefs  with  glass  ; while  Paris, 
Rome,  Berlin  and  Munich  have  but  a bit 
here  and  a bit  there  of  this  characteris- 
tically perfect  sculpture.  And  really  we 
must  learn  to  study  the  reliefs  ! The  writer 
of  this,  on  his  way  back  from  Athens  to 
the  north,  met  in  Rome  an  artist  and 
well  known  writer  on  art : and  the  answer 
made  to  the  enthusiasms  of  the  newcomer 
from  Greece  was,  “ Why,  there  are  no 
statues  there  ! ” No,  indeed  ! the  Roman 
conquerors  took  care  of  that ; they  also, 
like  our  modern  critic,  who  had  lived  for 
months  in  Athens,  not  knowing  that  the 
earlier  Greek  spirit  is  chiefly  to  be  found 
in  its  relief-sculpture. 

[23] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

It  seems  necessary  to  insist  upon  the 
rarity  of  this  Central  work,  because  our 
ideas  of  antique,  or  as  we  call  it,  classical 
sculpture,  are  so  often  derived  from  the 
great  collections  of  the  Louvre  and  the  Vati- 
can, collections  of  such  marked  inferiority 
as  to  relief  sculpture  that  a piece  of  pure 
Greek  work  in  one  of  those  long  galleries 
may  strike  one  with  astonishment  as  he 
passes  rapidly  by  the  great  array  of  Greco- 
Roman  copies.  Taking,  then,  these  few 
pieces — the  Parthenon  statues,  the  Hermes 
of  Praxiteles,  the  Victory  of  Paionios,  and 
the  reliefs  named  above,  we  are  able  to  see 
in  them  the  first  coming  out  of  masterly 
work  from  an  epoch  of  experiment. 

The  interesting  thing  to  note  is  the  free 
use  of  convention.  The  sculptor  was  an  ob- 
serving and  thoughtful  man,  whether  he  had 
learned  his  art  technically  or  not ; and  see 
what  he  thought  was  the  right  way  to  treat 
a male  figure ! Note  in  the  two  statues 
shown  in  Plate  VIII  the  extraordinary  de- 
velopment of  the  muscular  formation  above 
the  hip  : surely  that  is  not  copied  from  life, 
[24] 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

but  we  find  it  accepted  at  a very  early  time 
as  a mark  of  the  heroic  development  of  the 
body.  Note  in  the  draped  female  statues 
(Plate  V)  the  casting  of  the  drapery  : surely 
that  was  not  copied  from  the  folds  which 
the  garment  made  as  it  was  worn  in  daily 
life.  It  was  studied  for  its  ultimate  effect 
in  the  marble  or  the  bronze,  and  especially 
for  the  sense  of  the  strong  and  living  body 
beneath  the  clinging  stuff  It  is  indifferent 
to  our  inquiry  whether  that  study  was  made 
in  part  by  wetting  or  otherwise  stiffening 
the  thin  material  and  casting  it  in  folds, 
or  whether  the  sculptor  working  in  clay 
devised  his  folds  in  that  material,  casting 
merely  a glance  from  time  to  time  at  the 
draped  living  model  standing  by  him.  The 
interesting  thing  to  note  is  the  early  devel- 
opment of  the  artistic  feeling.  It  comes 
before  the  careful  study  of  nature  ; it  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  it  comes  before  any 
true  study  of  nature  at  all.  It  does  not 
come  without  some  observation  of  nature, 
but  that  observation  is  a lifelong  business 
and  began  when  the  artist  was  a child ; it 
[25] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

continued  in  his  advanced  state  of  pupilage, 
until,  with  his  mind  full  of  natural  facts  as 
he  had  seen  them  for  twenty  years,  he 
modeled  what  he  thought  was  an  attractive 
ideal.  Realizing  the  fact  that  he  could  not 
copy  nature  accurately,  he  was  also  not  fully 
desirous  of  copying  nature  at  all,  but  ac- 
cepted with  pleasure  the  other  standard,  the 
conventional  standard,  the  hierarchic  stand- 
ard, if  you  please : he  was  ready  to  believe 
that  it  was  in  this  way,  the  traditional  way 
with  slight  improvements,  that  the  human 
body  and  the  drapery  which  covers  it  should 
be  represented. 

Out  of  this  primitive  desire  for  effect  and 
expression  rather  than  for  close  resemblance 
to  nature,  comes  the  great  sculpture  of  the 
noblest  time.  The  drapery  cast  about  those 
seated  figures  of  the  Parthenon  pediment 
(see  Plate  V)  is  as  much  a matter  of  conven- 
tion as  the  drapery  of  the  most  archaic  votive 
statue  or  as  the  nude  forms  of  the  earlier 
time.  The  effect  upon  the  artist’s  work, 
of  his  constant  observation  of  the  human 
body  in  great  and  beautiful  development 
[26] 


Plate  V.  — STATUES  FROM  EAST  PEDIMENT  OF  PARTHENON,  NOW  IN  BRITISH  MUSEUM;  WORK  OF  ABOUT 
430  B.  C. 


Plate  VI. — ONE  OF  THE  CARYATIDES  OF  THE  ERECHTHEION,  ON  THE  ACROPOLIS 
AT  ATHENS.  WORK  OF  ABOUT  380  B.  C.  THIS  ONE  IN  THE  BRITISH  MUSEUM; 
ITS  PLACE  IN  THE  BUILDING  FILLED  BY  A TERRA  COTTA  COPY. 


The  Greek  Standard  of  Excellence 

is  so  very  strong  that  even  insensibly  the 
figures  would  come  continually  more  and 
more  close  to  the  natural  standard.  And 
yet  the  fact  that  they  never  reached  it 
is  shown  by  an  easy  and  swift  recognition 
on  the  part  of  us  moderns,  of  the  epoch  to 
which  each  piece  belonged.  This  recogni- 
tion may  not  always  be  accurate ; we  may 
be  misinformed  and  we  may  misinterpret 
the  evidence  ; but  we  are  always  ready,  after 
a short  consideration  of  the  facts,  to  say  that 
such  a piece  is  of  the  time  of  Phidias,  such 
another  of  the  time  of  Skopas,  such  another 
of  the  Greco-Roman  period.  None  of  them 
are  very  closely  like  nature  : all  of  them  are 
closely  studied  from  nature  : all  of  them  are 
good  art,  and  each  differs  from  all  the  others 
in  certain  qualities  of  art  which  are  as 
nearly  as  possible  inexpressible  in  words. 
That  is  to  say,  the  difference  between  the 
work  of  the  time  of  Phidias  and  Polykleitos 
and  that  of  the  time  of  Praxiteles  and 
Skopas  results,  not  from  any  change  of  the 
natural  human  type — it  is  entirely  a chang- 
ing of  tradition — each  great  sculptor  in- 
[27] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 


fluencing  his  contemporaries  and  his  follow- 
ers as  to  the  way  in  which  the  human  body 
should  be  treated  in  the  arts  of  form. 


[28] 


CHAPTER  II 

GREEK  CULMINATION  AND  DECLINE 

Inasmuch  as  the  interest  of  antique  sculp- 
ture is,  for  us,  wholly  artistic — as  we  can- 
not know  or  closely  guess  what  was  the 
personal  or  emotional  or  non-artistic  feel- 
ing behind  it — it  is  of  the  very  highest  im- 
portance to  distinguish  between  the  most 
perfect  work  and  that  which,  though  fine, 
is  inferior.  And  it  is  this  very  thing,  this 
discrimination,  which  was  the  special  work 
of  the  years  1860  to  1900.  Distinctions 
formerly  suspected  were  put  to  proof  dur- 
ing those  busy  years.  New  distinctions 
were  made  and  established.  Things  long 
supposed  one  were  put  apart,  each  into  its 
own  category.  And  so  it  was  that  the  dif- 
ference between  a fine  copy  and  the  lost 
original  was  made  clear. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  compare  the  un- 
disputed original  statue,  the  Hermes  found 
at  Olympia  (Plate  VII),  with  statues  of  the 
same  epoch  which  are  not  thought  to  be 
[29] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

originals,  however  trustworthy  they  may 
be  as  copies — however  fine  in  their  indi- 
vidual capacity.  There  is  a famous  statue 
in  the  Vatican,  occupying  one  of  the  four 
corner  tribunes  of  the  Belvedere  and  almost 
as  famous  as  the  other  statue,  the  Apollo 
which  takes  its  name  from  the  same  court 
and  gallery.  The  Apollo  Belvedere  stands 
diagonally  opposite  to  the  statue  which  we 
are  considering  here,  and  which  is  called 
in  some  of  the  guide-books  “ Mercury,’7  in 
others  “ Antinous  ” (an  absurd  ascription), 
and  now  more  commonly  a “ Hermes.” 
That  statue,  the  praises  of  which  have  been 
sounded  by  generations  of  enthusiasts,  owes 
its  celebrity  in  great  part  to  its  having  been 
discovered  a good  many  years  ago  (in  the 
sixteenth  century),  and  to  its  having  been 
placed  in  the  most  admired  corner  of  the 
most  famous  museum  of  Europe.  There  is 
a statue  in  the  British  Museum  labelled 
“ Mercury,”  which  was  not  found  until  long 
afterwards,  and  which  then  passed  to  the 
Farnese  family,  from  whose  palace  in  Rome 
it  was  transferred  to  the  Museum  in  our 
[30] 


Plate  VII. — HERMES  OF  PRAXITELES,  FOUND  IN  THE  RUINS  OF  OLYMPIA  AND 
NOW  IN  THE  MUSEUM  THERE.  WORK  OF  ABOUT  360  B.  C. 


Plate  VIII  A. — so-called  antinous  of  belve-  Plate  VIII  B. —so-called  mercury;  British 

DERE;  VATICAN  MUSEUM,  ROME.  MUSEUM. 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

own  time.  There  is  also  a statue  in  the 
Athens  Museum,  found  in  the  Island  of 
Andros  in  our  own  time ; and  these  three 
pieces  are  so  nearly  alike  in  pose,  in  treat- 
ment, that  they  give  the  strongest  testimony 
to  the  character  of  the  original  from  which 
all  three  have  been  copied.  The  palm  of 
superiority  is  no  longer  given  with  una- 
nimity to  the  Vatican  statue,  but  by  some 
authors  to  that  in  London,  by  others  to 
that  in  Greece ; but  all  three  are  statues  of 
such  uninjured  condition  and  of  such  finish 
and  technical  quality  that  only  the  delicate 
analysis  of  the  highly  trained  eye  and  mind 
of  the  student  of  art  could  decide  between 
them,  or  could  say  whether  one  or  another 
may  possibly  be  the  original  work  from 
which  the  others  were  taken.  In  one  re- 
spect at  least,  the  Vatican  statue  seems  the 
finer  conception.  The  trunk — the  torso — 
is  more  nobly  modelled,  while  the  Lon- 
don statue  has  a waist  given  to  it,  as  if 
the  sculptor  approved  of  laced-up  corsets. 
Plate  VIII  shows  these  two  side  by  side 
and  from  very  nearly  the  same  point  of 
[31] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

view,  and  it  is  evident  how  closely  they 
resemble  the  Hermes  of  Olympia,  although 
that  statue  has  the  additional  detail  of  the 
infant  Bacchus  supported  on  the  left  shoul- 
der. The  interesting  subject  of  the  treat- 
ment of  the  nude  body  may  be  followed  in 
this  connection  by  any  one  who  will  pro- 
cure photographs  of  nude  models  and  com- 
pare them,  detail  by  detail,  with  these 
statues.  An  eminent  living  sculptor  tells 
the  writer  that  as  for  the  great  develop- 
ment of  the  hip  muscles,  that  strange  ridge 
which  partly  bounds  the  abdomen  below 
and  projects  above  the  hip-joint  on  either 
side  (see  Plates  VIII  and  XII),  he  has  seen 
it  developed  to  the  full  in  a man  who  in 
a foundry  has  for  years  helped  carry  the 
heavy  ladles  of  molten  iron  to  the  moulds ; 
and  yet  he  would  not  say  that  this  muscular 
development,  rare  in  living  examples,  takes 
anything  like  the  form  shown  in  this  view 
of  the  Hermes  of  the  British  Museum  (Plate 
VIII  B).  This,  however,  is  only  the  most 
prominent  and  the  most  easily  described  of 
many  peculiarities.  The  whole  question  of 
[32] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

the  proportion  of  thigh  to  trunk  and  to  the 
leg  below  the  knee,  the  question  of  the  set- 
ting on  of  the  arm  on  either  side,  its 
growth  from  the  shoulder  and  its  position 
when  it  hangs  somewhat  freely,  the  propor- 
tion of  the  trunk  itself  as  to  the  difference 
between  the  measurement  around  the  body 
where  it  is  largest — under  the  arms — and 
the  measurement  below,  at  what  might  be 
called  the  waist,  and  every  separate  round- 
ing and  flattening  of  the  whole  muscular 
system  of  the  breast  and  abdomen,  are  all 
of  them  open  to  the  student’s  question 
much  less  as  to  what  they  show  or  may  be 
thought  to  show  of  the  living  model,  than 
in  respect  to  the  conventions  deliberately 
adopted  by  the  sculptor.  Again  the  com- 
parison of  the  modelling  of  these  figures  in 
the  whole  and  in  the  details  with  the  un- 
questioned original  statue,  the  Hermes  of 
* Olympia,  is  the  best  possible  lesson  as  to 
artistic  excellence,  for  it  is  a matter  of 
course  that  words  cannot  express  the  ad- 
mitted superiority  of  the  resulting  forms  in 
the  marble  of  Olympia,  and  in  that  of  the 
[33] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

British  Museum,  or  of  the  Vatican.  Even 
if  we  were  to  adopt  the  theory  of  those  who 
hold  that  the  Hermes  of  Andros  is  nearer 
to  its  lost  original  than  is  either  one  of  the 
pieces  shown  in  Plate  VIII,  we  have  still 
to  compare  it  with  the  undoubted  original, 
the  Hermes  of  Olympia,  with  the  probable 
result  that  it  will  seem  inferior  to  that 
splendid  statue.  If,  then,  we  go  a step  far- 
ther, and  compare  with  these  erect  statues 
the  majestic  seated  figures  of  the  Parthenon 
pediments  (Plates  III  and  IV),  we  shall  find 
in  them  two  claimants  of  the  first  and  high- 
est rank, — even  as  against  the  Hermes  of 
Olympia.  They,  also,  are  undoubted  orig- 
inals : and  their  beauty  and  dignity  have 
never  been  excelled  in  art. 

It  is  the  plague  of  all  attempts  to  write 
critically  about  the  plastic  arts,  that  when 
an  important  question  comes,  words  are  not 
found  by  which  that  question  can  be  stated 
— much  less  answered.  In  a matter  of  archi- 
tecture or  of  another  decorative  art,  the 
differences  seen  or  felt  by  the  critic  may 
sometimes  be  expressed  in  words,  or  it  may 
[34] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

be  asked  of  the  reader  or  suggested  to  him 
that  he  think  for  himself  how  far  he  is 
prepared  to  go  with  certain  opinions  set 
forth  in  the  text  which  he  is  reading ; but 
with  regard  to  such  pieces  of  sculpture  as 
these,  it  is  impracticable  to  show  them 
aright  by  means  of  illustration  in  the  book, 
— and  even  if  a dozen  photographs  of  each 
statue  could  be  given  and  all  these  taken 
from  correlative  points  of  view  there  would 
still  remain  the  hopelessness  of  expressing 
in  words  the  thoughts  which  they  call  into 
being.  How  are  words  to  express  that 
minute  increase  in  the  projecting  rotundity 
here,  or  there,  its  greater  or  less  flattening  ? 
And  yet  it  is  upon  such  differences  as  these 
that  there  depends  the  greatness  or  the  in- 
feriority of  sculpture.  When  we  pronounce 
upon  the  approximate  date  of  a relief,  how 
are  we  to  state  in  words  what  it  is  that  we  see 
in  the  refined  modelling  of  the  surface,  which 
ineffable  something  marks  the  distinction 
between  the  work  of  master  and  master  ? 

Take  now  one  of  the  finest  draped  statues 
of  antiquity,  the  magnificent  moving  figure 
[35] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  the  Vatican,  the  Niobide  of  the  Chiara- 
monti  Museum  (Plate  IX).  It  is  immeas- 
urably superior  to  any  figure  of  the  Niobide 
group  as  seen  in  Florence  ; and  indeed  there 
is  no  reason  to  call  it  a Niobide  at  all  ex- 
cept for  its  vigorous  action.  It  is  a most 
valuable  study  to  compare  this  drapery 
with  that  of  the  moving  figure  shown  in 
Plate  V,  a figure  which  is  undoubtedly  three 
quarters  of  a century  earlier,  and  of  pure 
Athenian  type,  whereas  the  Niobide  of  the 
Vatican  may  well  be  of  a later  and  of  a 
freer  and  more  independent  school.  The 
system  adopted  for  casting  the  drapery  is 
singularly  realistic.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  with  a little  care  and  watchfulness  that 
very  disposition  of  the  upper  garment  which 
is  shown,  could  be  reproduced  on  the  living 
model  to-day  ; while  the  undergarment  is 
the  simplest  chiton,  and  is  perfectly  well 
understood.  This  argues  no  superiority, 
but  only  the  presence  of  that  realism  which 
we  do  not  associate  with  the  work  of  the 
Phidian  epoch,  closing  about  400  b.  c.  but 
which  belongs,  as  wre  think,  to  the  time  of 
[36] 


Plate  IX. — SO-CALLED  NIOBIDE,  IN  THE  VATICAN  MUSEUM.  WORK  OF  ABOUT 
350  B.C. 


Plate  X.— STATUE  CALLED  APHRODITE  AND  ALSO  A VICTORY:  IN  THE  LOUVRE 
MUSEUM:  POPULARLY  THE  VENUS  OF  MILO.  PHOTOGRAPH  OF  1876. 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

Praxiteles  and  Skopas,  that  is  to  say,  to 
the  half  century  after  Phidias’  death,  about 
430  b.  c.  Indeed  a student  of  the  two 
figures  would  admit  at  once  the  greater 
mastery  shown  in  the  Athenian  figure. 
The  body  is  entirely  traceable  and  has 
been  perfectly  well  put  within  the  loose 
and  floating  garment ; while  in  the  Vatican 
statue  it  is  not  quite  so  clearly  expressed, 
as  indeed,  the  floating  himation  seems  to 
conceal  its  action  at  the  waist  and  pelvis. 
A further  comparison  with  the  two  seated 
figures  would  seem  to  confirm  the  impres- 
sion that  the  earlier  work  was  the  better, 
at  least  from  the  artistic  standpoint.  What 
is  the  curious  difference  in  touch  which 
makes  the  drapery  of  the  Niobide  seem  of  a 
thicker  material  than  that  in  the  Parthenon 
statue?  Whatever  it  is,  it  seems  to  imply 
a willing  abandonment  by  the  sculptor  of 
the  more  essential  facts  of  the  human  body 
for  the  sake  of  the  minor  facts  of  the  folds 
of  cloth. 

If  now  we  enter  the  next  succeeding 
epoch,  the  Alexandrian  time,  which  lasts  for 

[37] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

two  hundred  years  (say,  340-140  b.  c.)  and 
is  a time  of  decline,  we  find  all  the  charac- 
teristics of  a decadence  ; we  find  magnificent 
work  closely  associated  with  pieces  showing 
a decline  of  taste  and  a loss  of  power.  We 
have  of  original  statues  the  Nike  (Victory) 
of  Samothrace,  now  in  the  Louvre,  a statue 
which  we  can  date,  very  closely,  at  305  b.  c., 
and  which  almost  rivals  the  earlier  Nike  of 
Olympia ; the  Apoxyomenos  of  the  Vati- 
can ; the  seated  Dionysos  from  Athens  in 
the  British  Museum — all  originals  or  of  the 
first  rank  ; the  sleeping  Satyr  called  the 
“ Barberini  Faun,”  and  the  very  inferior, 
the  unattractive,  the  debased  pieces  which 
we  associate  with  the  memorial  set  up  by 
King  Attalos  on  the  Acropolis  of  Athens 
— the  Gauls  which  are  now  in  the  Naples 
Museum;  the  “Dying  Gladiator”  of  the 
Capitoline  Museum ; and  the  group,  the 
Barbarian  killing  his  wife,  in  the  Villa 
Ludovisi.  Those  pieces  are  all  of  second- 
ary importance  ; because  they  are  deliberate 
studies  of  the  form  and  features  of  less  cul- 
tivated races  than  the  Greeks.  It  is  exactly 
[38] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

as  if  we  were  to  speak  of  the  relative  im- 
portance of  the  red  Indians  modelled  by 
Carpeaux,  Ward  and  Massey  Rhind ; the 
statue  may  have  been  treated  with  equal 
nobility  of  purpose,  but  the  subject  is  less 
dignified  than  the  studies  by  the  same 
artists  of  a more  developed  race  of  men. 
With  the  above-named  pieces  is  to  be  associ- 
ated historically  the  famous  Laokoon  in  the 
Belvedere  of  the  Vatican,  a piece  in  which 
the  consummate  mastery  of  the  human 
form  is  only  equalled  by  the  violent  and  un- 
measured action  of  all  three  figures  and  the 
feeble  and  unintelligent  use  of  the  serpents. 
This  deprecatory  opinion,  generally  held  to- 
day by  those  writers  on  Greek  art  who  per- 
ceive and  love  its  highest  characteristics,  is 
that  of  the  time  of  special  study  of  Greek 
art  from  1875  on,  as  distinguished  from  the 
earlier  general  acceptance  of  the  group  as 
a masterpiece.  But  another  most  famous 
statue  of  this  time,  the  Torso  of  the  Bel- 
vedere may  possibly  have  formed  part  of 
another  group  also  offensive  to  us  in  its  de- 
sign ; we  can  only  take  this  as  what  it  is,  the 
[39] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

most  masterly  if  not  the  most  beautiful 
presentation  which  is  known  to  us  of  the 
idealized  male  body.  Plate  LXV  gives  two 
views  of  this  magnificent  Hercules,  the 
piece  which  Michelangelo,  as  we  are  told, 
considered  his  best  master  in  art,  and  which 
is  fortunately  uninjured  as  to  its  surface 
in  those  parts  which  are  not  broken  away. 
The  statue  found  in  1820  in  the  Island  of 
Milo,  the  ancient  Melos,  and  which  is  now 
in  the  Louvre,  the  Venus  of  Milo,  must  also 
be  classed  with  the  pieces  of  this  time  (see 
Plate  X)  and  so  must  the  splendid  bronze 
at  Brescia,  the  winged  Victory  kept  there ; 
and  also  the  Aphrodite  of  Capua,  in  the 
Naples  Museum.  These  three  statues  ma;y 
well  be  assumed  to  be  each  an  original,  bu* 
all  to  be  studies  and  re-studies  of  the  same 
type.  Even  the  Aphrodite  or  Venus  of 
Capua,  though  probably  of  the  Roman 
period,  may  well  be  rather  a reminiscence 
and  a re-study  than  a copy.  The  type  is 
that  of  the  Nike  writing  on  a shield  the 
names  of  those  whom  she  delights  to  honor 
or  the  record  of  their  deeds. 

[40] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

As  regards  the  Aphrodite  of  Melos,  it 
must  be  stated  that  there  have  been  several 
different  opinions  held  and  urged  strongly 
by  competent  judges  as  to  the  probable 
state  and  purpose  of  the  statue  in  its  orig- 
inal condition.  Even  the  epoch  is  dis- 
puted, for  at  least  one  most  accepted  ar- 
chaeologist and  fearless  critic  of  our  own  time 
claims  for  it  an  antiquity  as  great  as  that 
of  the  Phidian  age  itself — the  fifth  century 
b.  c.  It  has  even  been  proposed  that  the 
statue  be  taken  really  as  an  Aphrodite 
( Venus ) and  as  such  grouped  with  perhaps 
Ares  (Mars),  from  whose  shoulders  she  may 
be  thought  to  be  lifting  the  sword-belt — or 
else  as  “ Venus  Victrix  ” holding  out  the  ap- 
ple just  received  in  the  “Judgment  of  Paris.” 
The  placid,  unsuggestive  expression  of  face 
and  the  undisturbed  attitude  allow  of  this 
diversity  of  opinion  ; and  yet  it  seems  to 
the  writer  that  a person  who  has  studied 
the  other  two  statues  named  above,  and  es- 
pecially the  Victory  of  Brescia,  would  feel 
the  close  relation  between  this  piece  and 
the  triumphant  masterpiece  of  the  Louvre. 

[41] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Ever  since  the  placing  of  the  statue  in 
its  gallery  by  the  Seine,  it  has  received  a 
worship  as  general  and  immeasurably  more 
intelligent,  because  coming  from  a more 
critical  epoch,  than  the  outcry  of  an  earlier 
time  which  greeted  the  Apollo  Belvedere 
and  the  Venus  of  the  Medici  in  Florence. 
It  seems  odd  to  read  in  “ The  Newcomes  ” 
the  greeting  given  to  this  statue  which 
seems  to  us  so  modern  a discovery,  and  one 
has  to  look  up  the  date  and  to  realize  that 
it  was  placed  in  the  gallery  eighty  years 
ago,  before  one  can  grasp  the  full  signifi- 
cance of  the  long  continued  and  constantly 
increasing  chorus  of  admiration. 

It  is  a curious  fact  that  in  the  case  of  a 
statue  of  such  unmatched  fame  and  of  rec- 
ognized supremacy  there  should  be  so 
much  doubt,  not  merely  as  to  the  original 
significance  of  the  work  but  also  as  to  its 
complete  character  as  a work  of  sculpture — 
as  a mere  piece  of  modelling,  of  deliberately 
chosen  pose,  of  the  marble  cutting.  Thus 
the  well  known  fact  that  the  body  of  the 
statue  consists  of  two  blocks  of  marble,  the 
[42] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

joint  coming  at  the  hip,  and  the  further 
fact  that  it  has  always  been  set  up  with  cer- 
tain wedges  inserted  between  the  two 
blocks  of  marble,  giving  to  the  figure  a tilt 
or  inclination  of  undecided  amount,  illus- 
trates the  uncertainty  which  hangs  over 
every  ancient  piece.  The  Venus  of  Milo 
was  removed  from  its  place  at  the  time 
of  the  siege  of  Paris  in  1871,  and  when  it 
was  replaced  the  amount  of  inclination  was 
diminished — at  least  this  was  the  general 
statement  made  by  the  authorities  and  ac- 
cepted as  true  by  students  of  art  previously 
familiar  with  the  statue.  Those  who  re- 
member it  in  its  earlier  pose,  and  those  who 
have  by  them  casts  or  carefully  made  pho- 
tographs of  a period  before  1871,  know  how 
great  was  the  slant,  as  if  of  a body  carried  so 
far  from  the  ordinary  vertical  position  of  a 
person  standing  firmly  on  her  feet,  that  this 
position  could  not  be  maintained  for  more 
than  an  instant.  It  was  in  a sense  an  in- 
jury to  the  statue  ; that  is  to  say  the  exag- 
gerated pose  certainly  contradicted  the  in- 
tention of  the  great  artist  who  imagined  the 
[43] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

work  of  art,  and  of  him  who  finished  it 
according  to  the  original  conception.  As 
we  have  it  now  it  is  more  reasonably 
posed — there  can  be  no  doubt  about  that — 
and  yet  neither  that  curious  misconception 
of  the  statue  as  first  received  by  its  custo- 
dians, nor  the  serious  injuries  which  the  sur- 
face has  undergone,  nor  the  uncertainty  as 
to  the  action  of  the  arms — an  uncertainty 
carrying  with  it  an  equal  doubt  as  to  the 
general  purpose  of  the  statue  as  a figure 
standing  alone  or  as  one  of  a group — none 
of  these  can  be  thought  to  injure  the 
piece  in  any  essential  particular.  It  could 
not  have  been  admired  more  heartily,  nor 
could  it  have  given  to  the  enlightened 
people  of  the  European  races  greater  ar- 
tistic pleasure,  wrere  it  complete  and  in 
its  undoubted  original  condition.  In 
that  original  condition  it  would  have 
given  more  instruction  to  the  sculptor 
of  modern  times  ; unquestionably  a perfect 
knowledge  of  what  the  Venus  of  Milo  was 
meant  to  be  would  be  a most  valuable  ad- 
dition to  the  technician’s  stock  of  knowl- 
T 4-4-1 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

edge  and  a new  stimulus  to  his  thought,  but 
it  is  hardly  to  be  supposed  that  the  artistic 
charm  would  be  enhanced.  All  of  which 
is  another  form  of  words  for  the  same  state- 
ment, that  what  we  are  concerned  with  in  a 
work  of  art  is  the  artistic  aspect  of  it ; and 
also  that  this  artistic  merit  of  the  piece  is 
not  so  very  much  enhanced  by  any  other 
significance  than  that  contained  within  its 
own  superfices.  You  are  curious  to  know 
whether  the  “ Venus  of  Milo  ” is  a Venus 
Victrix  or  a Venus  grouped  with  Mars,  or  a 
Victory,  or,  as  some  one  has  suggested,  a 
Venus  grouped  with  her  winged  son,  the 
little  god  of  Love,  to  whom  she  is  supposed 
to  be  giving  instruction.  That  is  well 
enough  ; your  curiosity  is  a respectable  one  : 
but  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  it  is  a histor- 
ical, or  literary,  or  mythological,  or  senti- 
mental question  that  you  raise.  If,  indeed, 
we  had  reason  to  suppose  that  any  figure 
grouped  with  the  female  figure  which  we 
see,  or  any  shield  or  other  attribute  held  by 
the  Venus,  would  affect  the  general  aspect 
of  the  piece — would  alter  in  appearance  the 
[45] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

pose  of  the  female  figure  as  it  stands  resting 
on  the  right  leg  with  the  left  knee  much 
bent  and  apparently  supported  on  an  object 
of  some  sort — if  in  that  way  the  character 
of  the  statue  were  to  be  changed  for  us — 
but  indeed  we  have  no  possible  reason  to 
suppose  that  those  conditions  existed. 

A marked  contrast  to  that  severe  and  re- 
served conception  is  the  very  surprising 
statue  shown  in  Plate  XI  and  known  to  the 
world  as  the  Venus  of  the  Capitol.  It  is  in 
the  Capitoline  Museum  at  Rome,  and  is  one 
of  the  most  perfect  and  uninjured  pieces 
which  have  come  down  to  us  from  an- 
tiquity, for  when  found  in  the  eighteenth 
century  in  the  city  of  Rome,  carefully 
built  up  in  a crypt  or  cell  of  masonry  as  if 
to  preserve  it  at  a time  of  terror,  there  were 
no  injuries  recorded  except  the  tip  of  the 
nose  and  the  forefinger  of  each  hand.  Al- 
though these  fingers  are  named  as  restora- 
tions it  still  remains  doubtful  whether  they 
are  not  the  old  pieces  of  marble  found  in 
the  vault  and  replaced.  When  the  pres- 
ent writer  first  saw  this  statue  it  was  in 
[46] 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

company  with  a first-rate  archaeologist,  one 
who  has  become  famous  since  that  time 
in  large  explorations,  and  who  has  a sin- 
gular insight  into  the  delicate  distinctions 
between  the  styles  and  epochs  of  Greek 
sculpture  ; and  that  brilliant  man  expressed 
his  surprise  that  his  companion  should  care 
for  “ that  piece  of  decadent  art.”  But  it  is 
one  of  the  peculiarities  of  decadent  art — 
that  is,  of  the  art  of  the  Decadence  at  any 
period  of  the  world’s  history, — that  ex- 
quisite work  exists  side  by  side  with  the 
evidences  of  decline  and  even  of  corruption, 
not  merely  in  pieces  of  the  same  epoch  and 
the  same  land,  but  even  in  the  same  work 
of  art.  It  is  odd,  by  the  way,  that  the  most 
critical  students  who  look  over  the  whole 
field,  class  this  statue  with  the  Medician 
Venus  and  the  Venus  of  Arles  in  the 
Louvre,  and  place,  chronologically,  each  of 
these  important  works  of  a declining  artistic 
spirit  close  to  the  Venus  of  Milo  in  their 
categorical  description  of  antiquity.  There 
is  this  distinction  to  be  made,  that  while 
we  know  of  no  other  work  closelv  resem- 
[47] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

bling  that  shown  in  our  Plate  XI  which 
is  assumed  to  be  an  original  work,  no  one 
would  now  claim  that  the  Medician  Venus 
is  other  than  a late  copy  of  a lost  original, 
that  is,  of  one  of  those  modifications  of  the 
famous  Aphrodite  of  Knidos,  with  which 
antiquity  seems  to  have  been  abundantly 
supplied.  The  Venus  of  the  Capitol  is  the 
study  of  a more  mature  person  than  the 
Venus  of  Milo,  and  this  choice  was  evi- 
dently made  with  the  very  purpose  of  in- 
sisting upon  the  surface  forms  resulting 
from  much  greater  plumpness  of  body. 
Accordingly  the  view  given  in  Plate  XI  has 
been  chosen  from  among  several  different 
views,  that  the  half-tone  print  may  preserve 
the  singular  elaboration  of  the  statue,  as  in 
the  flattened  surface  of  the  lumbar  region, 
and  the  singularly  delicate  gradations  of 
roundings  and  flattings  which  pass  one 
into  another  over  the  whole  surface  of  the 
body  from  shoulders  to  thighs  and  again 
over  the  limbs  from  hip  to  ankle.  The 
statue  is  placed  (as  every  statue  ought  to  be) 
on  a revolving  stand  which  turns  with  a 
[481 


Greek  Culmination  and  Decline 

touch  of  the  finger  applied  to  a strong  cop- 
per knob.  Standing  in  a chosen  position 
with  the  light  which  has  been  found  the 
purest  and  strongest,  the  student  can  place 
his  statue  at  will,  and  there  is  infinitely 
great  artistic  pleasure  to  be  got  from  the 
study  of  its  carefully  wrought  forms,  how- 
ever much  one  might  prefer  to  have  in  the 
same  situation  a statue  with  the  virginal 
grace  of  a piece  of  the  time  of  Phidias,  or  a 
piece  which  might  be  thought  the  work  of 
Praxiteles  or  Skopas.  Unfortunately  the 
nude  form  was  hardly  studied  in  those  days 
of  early  refinement.  The  female  figures  of 
the  Parthenon  pediment  are  not  even  partly 
nude,  nor  is  it  certainly  known  that  any 
statue  of  this  character  exists  of  a period 
earlier  than  the  one  which  we  are  now  con- 
sidering. We  have  seen  reason  to  believe 
that  if  it  is  drapery  we  are  thinking  of,  the 
Phidian  type,  as  seen  in  the  statues  of  the 
Parthenon,  and  the  Praxitelean  type,  if  we 
may  call  it  so,  seen  in  the  Niobide  (Plate 
IX),  must  be  compared — and  we  must  also 
study  the  drapery  of  the  Roman  figures  of 
[49] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  Augustan  age  as  shown  in  Chapter  III. 
But  for  the  female  form,  studied  for  itself 
and  because  of  its  self-contained  beauty  and 
importance  to  art,  we  have  nothing  earlier 
than  the  somewhat  indefinite  period  which 
we  are  treating  now  and  which  we  have 
found  it  necessary  to  limit  by  the  years 
340-140  b.  c. 


[50] 


Plate  XI. STATUE  IN  THE  CAPITOLINE  MUSEUM,  CALLED  GENERALLY  “VENUS 

^ THE  CAPITAL.” 


Plate  XII  A. — statue  of  roman  epoch  in  the  Plate  XII  B. — statue  of  roman  epoch  in  the 

LOUVRE,  CALLED  A PORTRAIT  OF  MARCUS  JUN-  LATERAN  MUSEUM,  ASSUMED  TO  BE  A PORT- 

IUS  BRUTUS.  RAIT  OF  GERMANICUS  CAESAR. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ROMAN  EMPIRE  AND  EARLY  EGYPT 

It  is  notable  to  a modern  student  who 
spends  much  time  in  the  museums  of  Eu- 
rope, that  the  evidence  before  him  points 
unmistakably  to  a very  great  production  of 
sculpture  during  the  centuries  of  classical 
civilization.  There  must  have  been  an 
enormous  amount  of  it  produced,  relatively 
to  other  industries,  and  relatively  to  the  pop- 
ulation, even  in  poor  and  unsettled  Greece ; 
but  under,  the  vast  administration  of  the 
Roman  Empire  the  relative  proportion  was 
perhaps  increased,  while  the  actual  amount 
became  at  once  incalculably  great.  What 
we  see  in  the  long  galleries  of  the  Vatican 
are  mainly  Roman  copies  of  secondary 
merit,  and  such  imitative  pieces  as  were 
sculptured  by  thousands  to  adorn  gardens 
and  public  promenades,  where  they  count 
for  little  more  than  do  the  statues  set  upon 
the  pinnacles  of  Milan  Cathedral — well  out 
of  sight  unless  you  climb  to  the  roof, 
[51] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

and  even  then  marred  for  the  student  by 
the  brilliant  sky  behind  them.  The  evi- 
dent and,  indeed,  natural  indifference  to 
the  merit  of  these  thousands  of  decorative 
pieces  is  a thing  to  keep  in  mind.  Writers 
have  said  that  there  was  a larger  popula- 
tion of  statues  in  the  Rome  of  Trajan’s 
time  than  there  was  a living  population  : 
but  we  will  note  that  the  examples  which 
we  have  by  the  thousand,  either  in  the 
Chiaramonti  Museum  or  the  cold  white 
galleries  of  Naples,  such  as  were  set  about 
the  forums  and  under  the  roofed  porticoes, 
are  works  which  we  do  not  care  very  much 
about.  The  effect  of  such  a prodigious  pro- 
duction of  inferior  work  was  not,  however, 
bad  for  the  contemporaneous  production  of 
the  finest  work.  It  is  not  an  evil,  but  a 
good,  that  ten  thousand  marble-cutters  in 
the  Mediterranean  world  were  turning  out, 
each  ten  statues  a year  : that  was  clear  gain, 
because  it  gave  the  artist  of  purpose  and 
of  great  powers  of  design  a field  to  work 
in  of  which  we,  in  our  time,  can  have  no 
conception.  It  is  the  fashion  to  say  that 
[52] 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

the  Roman  sculpture  was  all  Greek ; that 
is  to  say,  that  it  was  done  by  Greeks  in 
the  employ  of  Roman  officials.  But  that 
statement  is  not  absolutely  true  except  in 
this  way — the  certain  fact  that  it  is  Greek 
instinct  which  inspired  the  Roman  world. 
This  was  not  in  fine  art  alone  ; it  was  the 
mission  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  hand  down, 
to  the  world  of  Europe  which  was  to  fol- 
low, the  Greek  tradition  kept  whole  and 
pure  by  the  long,  peaceful  control  of  the 
Empire  over  all  the  Mediterranean  lands. 
But  as  to  the  assertion  that  each  important 
piece  of  sculpture  was  Greek  in  its  incep- 
tion— not  only  can  it  not  be  maintained, 
but  the  contrary  is  rather  easy  to  dem- 
onstrate. If,  for  instance,  we  look  at  the 
reliefs  from  the  lost  arch  of  Trajan  in  Rome, 
we  shall  find  a dignity  and  a certain  tech- 
nical handling  of  drapery  which  it  is  not 
easy  to  surpass  even  in  the  art  of  the  fifth 
century  b.  c.  The  folds  of  the  toga  are  not 
those  of  the  himation  ; and  what  is  more 
important,  the  touch  of  the  Italian  of  100 
a.  d.  is  not  that  of  the  Athenian  of  420  b.  c. 

[53] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

But  (and  here  is  a good  comparison  to  start 
with)  which  of  the  two  will  you  prefer  ? 

Even  if  you  begin  with  the  admission 
that  the  Greek  art  of  the  fifth  century  b.  c. 
was  the  most  perfect  known  to  us  (and  we 
have  begun  by  that  admission),  we  have  still 
to  certify  to  ourselves  that  we  find  each 
separate  piece  better  than  the  corresponding 
piece  which  we  may  choose  out  of  the  later 
epoch.  One  is  reminded  of  the  opinion 
sometimes  expressed  -by  architectural  de- 
signers of  first-rate  ability  and  taste — the 
opinion  that  as  a whole  Roman  architecture 
is  more  attractive.  It  has  so  much  more  in 
it — so  much  greater  variety,  so  much  larger 
knowledge,  it  aspires  to  so  much  more,  it  is 
so  immeasurably  more  vast  and  wide,  that 
even  the  mastery  of  the  Greek  of  his 
delicate  details  and  refined  proportion  can- 
not carry  it  against  the  ordered  majesty  of 
the  Roman  structure.  So  to  a certain  extent 
it  is  with  sculpture.  To  take  Plate  XII, 
the  figure  of  “ Junius  Brutus  ” in  the 
Louvre,  or  that  of  the  so-called  Germanicus 
in  the  Lateran  Museum,  which  are  not 
[54] 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

necessarily  the  finest,  but  only  two  of  many 
of  the  interesting  portrait  statues  of  the 
first  century  a.  d.— there  is  in  them  a close 
study  of  nature,  an  admirable  thing  to 
watch,  showing  itself  in  contrast  with  and, 
as  it  were,  refusing  to  be  subdued  by  the 
Greek  tradition.  It  is  indeed  uncertain 
bow  far  the  details  of  the  personality  were 
considered  by  the  Roman  or  Greco-Roman 
sculptor  in  his  working  of  portrait  statues. 
The  face,  the  form  of  the  head,  the  placing 
of  the  ears,  the  neck  in  its  comparative 
thickness  and  length,  in  its  peculiar  build 
and  setting  on  (always  an  interesting  sub- 
ject in  portrait  art)  these  may  indeed  be  as- 
sumed to  be  close  studies  from  the  living 
model,  which  in  this  case  is  of  necessity  a 
thing  to  be  copied  closely,  not  a mere  sub- 
ject of  general  study  on  the  part  of  the 
artist.  The  hands  may  be  thought  to  have 
been  very  closely  studied  from  life ; and 
with  the  hands  go  the  arms  or  at  least  the 
forearms.  But  who  shall  say  how  far  this 
close  following  of  nature,  of  the  individual 
nature,  was  carried  ? When  a portrait  artist 
[55] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

is  engaged  with  the  setting  on  of  the  nose 
to  the  forehead  he  has  a most  difficult  but 
interesting  task  in  hand,  for  no  two  faces 
are  alike  in  that  characteristic,  and  the  dif- 
ference is  one  easy  to  identify,  to  carry  in 
the  mind,  to  insist  upon.  Is  the  setting  on 
of  the  arm  to  the  shoulder  and  the  relation 
of  the  point  of  the  shoulder  to  the  collar- 
bone very  much  less  individual?  Would 
not  the  sculptor  be  much  influenced  at  once 
by  the  opposing  wishes  to  produce  an 
heroic  figure  and  to  stick  close  to  nature 
in  this  detail,  which  must  have  seemed 
to  him  a matter  of  importance  in  por- 
traiture? There  is  a story  of  a very  great 
and  famous  personage  of  the  eighteenth 
century  whose  portrait  a contemporary 
sculptor  wished  to  render  in  the  grand 
style  and  who  was  the  first  to  laugh  at 
the  incongruous  aspect  of  the  strongly 
marked  old  face,  wrinkled  with  thought, 
expressing  knowledge  beyond  that  of  his 
time  and  a satirical  interest  in  the  world  as 
he  saw  it  around  him,  placed  upon  an 
athletic  frame  as  of  a man  thirty  years 

[56] 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

younger  and  one  who  had  developed  his 
muscles  rather  than  his  thinking  machin- 
ery. The  Roman  would  not  have  done  that, 
because  to  a Roman  the  form  of  age,  the 
form  even  of  partial  decrepitude,  was 
not  a thing  to  abhor  or  to  avoid.  We  have 
statues  of  antiquity  representing  even  de- 
formed persons,  which  therefore  we  call 
“iEsop,”  and  we  have  statues  of  old  and 
feeble  and  decaying  vitality,  which  we  call 
Epictetus  or  Seneca  for  want  of  a name. 
The  Roman  was  not  unaccustomed  to  the 
nude,  even  when  the  nude  was  no  longer 
brilliant  with  the  first  charm  of  youth,  even 
when  it  had  passed  far  on  the  downward 
grade.  And  therefore  when  we  see  a 
statue  as  completely  ideal  as  the  “ Germani- 
cus  ” shown  in  Plate  XII,  we  are  compelled 
to  suppose  that  this  piece  was  intended  as  one 
of  those  entirely  ceremonial  portraits  which 
stood  for  the  young  military  hero,  the 
nephew  of  the  imperial  master  of  the  time, 
the  favorite  commander  of  a Legionary 
army,  the  powerful  governor  of  a province 
or  of  a group  of  provinces,  in  fact  the  per- 
[57] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

son  whom  we  represent  to-day  shrouded  in 
a uniform  coat  of  ugly  fashion,  bedizened 
with  dangling  crosses.  The  Roman  glori- 
fied such  a young  dignitary  by  showing 
him  in  an  ideal  perfection  of  bodily  frame 
treated  as  the  principal  subject  and  draped 
only  in  part,  with  the  also  much  idealized 
garment  of  the  time  allowed  to  fall  loosely 
over  the  hips  and  the  forearm.  We  are 
to  take  these  statues  as  the  highest  mark  of 
honor  and  favor  which  could  be  done  to 
a celebrity  of  the  time. 

It  may  be  well  to  pursue  this  subject  a 
little  further  and  to  consider  the  statue, 
Plate  XIII.  This  marble  is  in  the  Louvre, 
representing  a Roman  who  has  not  yet 
reached  his  full  stature,  indeed,  and  who 
still  wears  the  bulla  or  hanging  locket  in 
which  (or  in  its  contents)  there  lay  some 
superstition  of  good  luck,  but  who  has 
assumed  the  toga.  Now  it  is  uncertain 
whether  this  garment  is  the  toga  jprxtexta 
(the  toga  with  the  purple  border),  or  the  full 
toga  of  manhood  which  was  not  assumed, 
as  we  are  told  by  Pliny,  until  the  time 
[58] 


Plate  XIII. — PORTRAIT  STATUE  OF  A ROMAN  YOUTH.  LOUVRE  MUSEUM. 


Plate  XIV. — RELIEF  SCULPTURE:  MARCUS  AURELIUS  offering  sacrifice,  at- 
tended BY  THE  FLAMEN  DIALIS,  A BOY  HOLDING  A BOX  (OF  INCENSE?)  AND 
OTHER  SERVANTS  OF  THE  RITE.  SCULPTURE  OF  ABOUT  l8o  A.  D.  MUSEUM 
OF  THE  PALACE  OF  THE  CONSERVATORS,  ROME. 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

when  the  bulla  was  abandoned  and  the 
young  man  was  thought  to  have  reached 
the  age  of  discretion.  Of  course  it  is  en- 
tirely unknown  who  is  the  person  rep- 
resented. We  are  concerned  only  with  the 
strong  evidence  in  the  piece  itself  that  it  is 
a portrait,  and  that  it  is  of  an  excellent  time 
of  Greco-Roman  art,  that  is  to  say,  of  the 
time  between  the  accession  of  Augustus  and 
the  death  of  Nero,  about  25  b.  c.  to  65  a.  d. 
This  statue  has  always  been  interesting  to 
students  of  costume,  because  the  extremely 
complicated  and  for  us  only  half  under- 
stood wearing  of  that  voluminous  garment 
needs  every  contemporary  illustration 
which  we  can  bring  to  bear  upon  the  sub- 
ject. It  is,  however,  more  than  that,  it  is 
an  interesting  specimen  of  the  way  in 
which  a portrait  statue  may  become  a beau- 
tiful and  permanently  valuable  work  of 
art,  in  the  days  of  graceful  and  unchang- 
ing costume.  A sculptor  of  our  own  time 
would  be  obliged  to  study  the  fashion 
plates  that  he  might  render  the  portrait  of 
a man  twenty  years  dead  without  commit- 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

ting  some  disagreeable  solecism  in  the  cut 
of  the  trousers  ; and  even  with  the  greatest 
care  he  is  absolutely  certain  that  his  statue, 
offending  no  one  when  it  is  accepted,  will 
be  a monstrosity  to  the  people  of  only  half 
a century  later  when  the  fashion  he  has 
been  compelled  to  represent  shall  have  be- 
come obsolete,  with  the  result  inevitable  in 
modern  costume,  of  being  also  hideous. 
But  the  Roman  dress  has  never  become 
ugly  to  us,  and  whether  it  is  studied  thor- 
oughly and  realistically,  as  in  Plate  XIII,  or 
as  a more  decorative  adjunct,  as  in  the  two 
statues  shown  in  Plate  XII,  it  is  equally  a 
help  to  the  design,  enabling  us  to  receive 
without  special  regret,  this  substitution  for 
the  still  more  admirable  treatment  of  the 
nude. 

Plate  XIV  is  a Roman  relief  of  a later 
time,  a relic  of  the  lost  arch  dedicated  to 
Marcus  Aurelius,  and  therefore  erected  and 
the  sculptures  wrought  probably  after  the 
death  of  that  Emperor,  180  a.  d.  Decadence 
is  obvious  enough  in  the  work  of  that  reign 
and  of  the  time  that  was  to  follow.  The  re- 
[60] 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

lief  is  indeed  imperfectly  preserved,  for  some 
modern  disfigurement  does  surely  exist  in 
parts  of  the  group  ; but  the  conception  can 
be  perfectly  understood  and  the  desire  of 
the  Roman  artist  of  the  second  century 
A.  d.  to  tell  the  story  which  he  had  to  re- 
late, is  as  visibly  strong  as  his  inferiority  in 
all  technical  and  even  in  all  artistic  ways. 
It  is  curious  to  see  what  pains  have  been 
taken  to  force  the  heads  all  into  profile, 
and  how  awkwardly  the  composer  has 
done  his  work.  The  drapery,  too,  has 
lost  its  charm  ; it  is  too  obviously  copied 
from  copies,  too  evidently  the  result  of 
the  artist’s  memories  of  other  reliefs,  ex- 
cluding, as  it  seems,  the  study  of  the  men 
around  him  and  their  garments.  It  is  a 
first  step  in  the  direction  of  that  modern 
characteristic  in  fine  art  which  leads  on 
towards  relation  and  description — things 
often  incompatible  with  a lofty  artistic  con- 
ception. The  greatness  of  Roman  art  is 
lost  in  this  as  completely  as  the  purity  and 
delicacy  of  that  Grecian  sculpture  which 
was  of  Grecian  lands  alone. 

[61] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

In  what  has  been  said  above  there  is 
no  attempt  to  assert  any  superiority  of  first 
century  Roman  art  over  the  splendid  art  of 
the  Greeks : we  are  comparing  the  later 
with  the  earlier  work  as  we  compare  the 
work  of  the  pupil  with  that  of  the  master  : 
but  it  is  open  to  any  one  to  find  a charm 
in  the  work  of  the  younger  men  different 
to  that  which  he  found  in  the  work  of  the 
Periclean  day.  Or,  to  take  the  very  im- 
portant matter  of  decorative  sculpture 
which  is  not  of  human  subject;  consider 
the  reliefs  of  the  time  of  Augustus,  the 
study  of  the  leaf  forms,  and  indeed  of  plant 
form  in  general,  and  note  that  nothing 
done  by  the  Greeks  in  their  day  of  greatest 
artistic  achievement  could  be  compared 
with  this  for  a moment  for  variety,  for 
realistic  sense  of  what  natural  objects  have 
signified  to  the  artist  for  the  purposes  of 
ornamentation.  This  newly  gained  sense 
of  architectural  purpose  in  the  sculpture  of 
plant  form,  animal  form  and  even  human- 
ity would  naturally  tell  upon  that  sculp- 
ture which  has  no  immediate  decorative 

[62] 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

purpose.  Or  again,  consider  the  human 
and  the  partly  human  figures,  “ garden 
statues  ” if  you  choose  to  call  them  so, 
terms  and  the  like.  The  figure  of  unques- 
tionably Roman  epoch  (Plate  XV  B)  which 
we  compare  wuth  one  as  certainly  Greek  in 
origin  (Plate  XV  A)  and  Greek  of  a good 
time,  is  not  necessarily  inferior  to  it.  We 
must  give  up  the  child  on  the  faun’s  shoul- 
der— he  looks  like  a restoration ; it  would 
surprise  no  one  to  learn  that  that  wretched 
little  figure  was  put  there  in  the  time  of 
Constantine— but  apart  from  this  the  ter- 
minal figure  is  fine  and  well  conceived. 
The  truth  seems  to  be  that  the  whole  Med- 
iterranean world  was  filled  with  the  artis- 
tical  sense  which  had  manifested  itself  most 
strongly  in  Egypt  four  thousand  years  be- 
fore ; in  Assyria,  for  a moment,  at  a much 
later  period  ; probably  in  Babylonia  and 
other  parts  of  western  Asia,  at  different  and 
not  easily  fixed  periods ; and  at  last,  in  its 
highest  development  known  to  us,  in  Attica 
and  Central  Greece,  about  the  middle  of 
the  fifth  century  b.  c. — that  this  artistic 
[63] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

sense,  slowly  fading,  if  you  please,  and  los- 
ing  some  of  its  childlike  vigor  and  inten- 
sity of  purpose,  had  broadened  and  grown 
sympathetic.  The  cup  found  in  the 
trenches  at  Alesia  (where  Caesar  lay  en- 
camped before  the  stronghold  of  Vercinget- 
orix)  is  a good  specimen  of  what  we  have 
learned  to  call  the  Augustan  art  of  Rome. 
Plant  form  did  not  interest  the  Greek 
sculptor  very  much,  nor,  so  far  as  we 
can  infer  from  vases  and  the  like,  did 
it  interest  the  Greek  draughtsman  very 
much,  except  as  he  took  the  changing  cur- 
vature of  the  edge  of  a leaf  or  the  ramifica- 
tions from  a common  centre  of  a sprig  of 
leaves ; satisfied  with  that  one  suggestion 
received  from  nature  and  then  going  on  to 
compose  his  own  sculpture,  moulding  his 
anthemion  in  color  or  in  low  relief.  But 
the  Roman  working  fifty  years  before 
the  commencement  of  our  era,  as  near 
as  we  can  judge,  loves  his  laurel  leaves  as 
well  as  ever  a Greek  loved  the  torso  of  a 
youthful  athlete,  enjoys  it  beyond  measure, 
revels  in  casting  his  leafage  in  graceful 
[64] 


Plate  XV  A. — terminal  figure,  flute  player.  Plate  XV  B. — terminal  figure,  satyr,  of  fo- 
late GREEK  WORK.  BRITISH  MUSEUM.  MAN  EPOCH.  LATERAN  MUSEUM. 


Plate  XVI. — STATUE  OF  diorite,  identified  as  a portrait  of  king  chef- 

EREN,  OR  KAFRA,  OF  THE  FOURTH  DYNASTY.  BOULAK  (NOW  GIZEH) 
MUSEUM. 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

combinations  and  interspersing  it  with 
berries  in  the  highest  possible  relief— in 
more  than  relief,  in  solid  projection  from 
the  surface  of  the  vase.  And  note  how 
purely  decorative  he  is  in  his  treatment 
of  it.  As  compared  with  modern  work  of 
the  sort  this  is  not  “ realistic  ” at  all,  for 
the  distribution  of  the  fillets  which  bind 
the  laurel  branches  together,  and  the  fact 
that  the  branches  are  cut  and  hung  up 
with  their  butts  uppermost,  shows  that  they 
are  selected  to  adorn  a triumphal  or  a 
memorial  composition.  The  designer  is  a 
true  decorative  artist ; he  has  not  worried 
himself  about  the  treatment  of  his  vegeta- 
tion, nor  has  he  spent  much  thought  about 
its  growth  ; he  has  laid  the  twigs  and  the 
branches,  the  leaves  and  the  berries,  in  im- 
agination at  least,  upon  the  rounded  form 
of  his  cup  in  such  a way  as  to  produce  a 
beautiful  result.  Or  study  the  relief  sculp- 
ture of  leafage  exhibited  here  and  there  in 
the  museums  of  Rome,  some  part  of  which 
we  have  learned  to  trace  to  that  famous 
Altar  of  Peace  which  Augustus  saw  inaug- 
:£65] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

urated.  We  might  go  farther  afield  and  in- 
clude in  our  examination  the  exquisite  re- 
liefs in  stucco  of  the  first  century  a.  d.  ; but 
it  is  impossible  to  carry  the  consideration 
of  ornamental  use  of  sculpture  very  far — 
that  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  book — we 
have  only  to  enquire  how  far  such  a dec- 
orative tendency  existing  in  full  strength 
and  applied  alike  to  the  colossal  buildings 
of  the  Imperial  City  and  to  the  portable 
playthings  of  the  nobles,  might  influence 
the  character  of  the  human  sculpture  itself. 
At  least  it  seems  a necessary  conclusion 
that  the  freedom  given  to  the  treatment  of 
costume  is  akin  to  the  interest  shown  in 
leaf  form  and  in  purely  ornamental  slabs 
and  panels.  Moreover  if  that  is  true,  is  it 
not  also  true  that  these  tendencies  are  ex- 
pressed in  part  in  the  stateliest  sculpture 
of  the  time  ? 

In  comparison  with  this  work  of  the  last 
great  epoch  of  antiquity,  let  us  consider 
that  of  the  earliest  epoch  known  to  us  ; 
that  is  to  say,  as  far  as  artistic  matters  go, 
the  early  Empire  of  Egypt.  The  statues 
[66]  ' 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

which  we  are  considering  may  be  dated 
3500  b.  c.  : that  will  do  as  well  as  another 
date  : it  is  earlier  than  any  date  even  ap- 
proximately associated  with  any  other  king- 
dom or  race,  except  always  the  newly-fixed 
facts  concerning  the  peoples  of  the  Meso- 
potamian Plain.  The  statues  of  Prince  Ra 
Hotep  and  his  wife,  Nefert,  in  the  Gizeh 
Museum  show  as  much  ignorance,  if  it  is 
ignorance,  about  the  facts  of  the  feet  and 
the  hands,  as  would  a carving  of  a South 
African  savage : but  the  facts  that  the 
pose  of  the  body  is  well  understood,  the 
head  well  set  on  the  torso,  powerful,  well 
marked,  and  correct  in  its  main  mass, 
are  all  the  evidence  of  a strong  sculptur- 
esque tradition  already  in  existence,  and  of 
a strong  sculpturesque  feeling  in  the  artist 
who  composed  the  statue.  We  are  inclined, 
therefore,  to  ascribe  the  clumsy  fingers 
and  toes  and  the  very  poor  articulation  of 
the  wrists  and  ankles  to  the  awkwardness 
which  we  might  expect  in  men  designing 
statues  which  are  to  be  worked  by  igno- 
rant chisel-men  toiling  in  hard  material. 

[67] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

The  statue  of  Cheferen  (see  Plate  XVI) 
is  much  more  developed  in  the  way  of 
knowledge  : and  in  both  these  figures  it  is 
well  to  note  the  extraordinary  characteriza- 
tion of  the  head.  In  each  case  it  is  a por- 
trait. The  archaic  feeling  for  the  human 
body,  nude  and  semi-nude,  is  always  that 
it  is  to  be  represented  in  a certain  delib- 
erately adopted  way : but  whatever  the 
priestly  rule  may  have  been  for  the  head, 
it  is  evident  that  the  artist  broke  away  from 
it  in  both  of  these  instances,  and  in  the  very 
seat  of  human  expression  found  the  most 
play  for  his  refined  art.  As  for  the  wooden 
statue  (see  Plate  XVII),  which  may  almost 
certainly  be  dated  as  early  as  either  of  the 
two  stone  ones  mentioned,  it  is  on  record 
that  when  it  came  out  of  the  dry  sand 
which  had  preserved  it  for  centuries  there 
was  a general  shout  from  the  Arabic  work- 
men employed — “ the  Sheik-El-Beled  ! ” — 
that  is  to  say,  the  head  man  of  the  village. 
The  poor  fellows  saw  in  this  statue,  six 
thousand  years  old  when  they  took  it  up, 
the  very  image  of  the  masterful  official  who 
[68] 


Plate  XVII. — WOODEN  STATUE,  FOUND  IN  a TOMB  IN  THE  NECROPOLIS  OF  MEMPHIS.  WORK  OF  THE  FOURTH 
DYNASTY,  3998-3721  B.  C.  (FLINDERS  PETRIE.) 


Plate  XVIII.— PYLON  OF  TEMPLE  OF  HORUS  AT  EDFOO,  BUILT  UNDER  THE  PTOLEMAIC  KINGS  ABOUT  250 
TO  I25  B.  C. 


The  Roman  Empire  and  Early  Egypt 

controls  each  hamlet  along  the  Nile ; with 
his  businesslike,  selfish  straightforwardness 
he  was  there  incarnate,  or  nearly  so,  visible 
to  the  eyes  of  all. 

There  is  another  interesting  thing  about 
the  Egyptian  sculpture,  and  that  is  the  ex- 
treme boldness  of  its  architectural  adorn- 
ment in  relief.  The  work  of  Edfoo  (see 
Plate  XVIII)  is  not  very  ancient ; but  it  is 
of  the  same  character  as  much  earlier  struc- 
ture, and  there  is  no  other  building  in  such 
good  preservation,  for  Edfoo  was  covered 
deep  in  dry  sand  until  Mariette  cleared  it 
away  in  our  own  time.  That  it  is  still  of 
that  form  of  relief  which  we  call  ccelana- 
glyphic  is  not  to  deter  any  one  from  recog- 
nizing in  it  all  the  characteristics  of  true 
relief  sculpture.  If  you  were  to  mould  and 
cast  one  of  those  figures  in  plaster  and  were 
then  to  work  with  a chisel,  planing  and 
scraping  away  all  the  material  until  the 
figure  was  left  projecting  from  a flat  back- 
ground, you  would  have  bas-relief  of  an  ap- 
proved form.  This  same  way  of  carving 
the  surface  is  common  in  the  arts  of  many 
[69] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

nations  and  times  ; the  Japanese  use  it  with 
great  effect  in  ivory  and  on  a smaller  scale  ; 
it  lends  itself  extremely  well  to  architec- 
tural use,  because  the  round  column  can  be 
thickly  covered  with  such  ornamentation, 
without  losing  its  roundness  and  its  aspect 
as  a supporting  member — a fact  easily  to 
be  noted  in  this  very  temple  of  Edfoo,  as  in 
others  of  much  earlier  time.  Whether  in 
this  form  or  in  the  more  familiar  bas-relief 
with  the  background  cleared  away,  the 
Egyptian  wall-sculpture  was  elaborately 
painted  in  brilliant  colors  of  most  marvel- 
lous architectural  effect.  And  this  chapter 
may  close  with  this  suggestion  to  the  reader, 
that  although  it  cannot  be  maintained  for 
a moment  that  sculpture  is  chiefly  con- 
cerned with  the  adornment  of  architecture, 
it  is  also  true  that  some  of  its  greatest 
flights,  its  most  swift  and  notable  advances 
from  a lower  to  a higher  plane,  have  been 
in  close  connection  with  architectural  mon- 
uments. 


[70] 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  EUROPEAN  MIDDLE  AGES 

Sculpture  is  always  the  most  sensitive 
of  the  arts.  It  is  the  most  easily  lost  and 
the  most  difficult  to  recover.  Throughout 
the  long  centuries  of  slow  evolution  in  artistic 
design,  there  remains  for  the  people  even  of 
a lower  civilization,  of  a depressed  national 
character,  of  a lowered  prosperity,  much 
sense  of  the  value  of  color  and  of  decorative 
patterns.  Hence  it  comes  that  while  paint- 
ing in  one  form  or  another,  mosaic,  inlay, 
the  use  of  varied  materials  in  combination 
and  the  application  of  painting  by  hand, 
are  all  more  or  less  prosperous,  at  no  time 
do  they  disappear.  When  a community  is 
well-to-do  and  at  peace  sufficiently  to  allow 
its  members  to  think  of  building  or  of 
making  utensils,  the  decoration  of  those 
pieces  goes  with  their  structure ; and  this 
decoration,  when  it  is  a matter  of  surface 
adornment  in  color  or  what  is  equivalent  to 
color,  is  never  without  interest.  When, 
LTl] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

however,  it  consists  of  solid  form,  the 
whole  disability  of  the  epoch  becomes 
evident,  and  the  modern  student  finds 
himself  in  the  presence  of  an  art  which 
has  gone  to  pieces.  A strong  instance 
of  this  is  seen  in  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries  a.  d.,  when  the  great  Empire  was 
gradually  losing  its  military  and  intellec- 
tual strength,  in  a way  very  hard  for  us 
to  understand.  Years  of  peace  for  the 
whole  Mediterranean  world  had  brought  in 
their  train  not  prosperity  and  life,  but 
universal  decline,  a decreasing  population, 
a fading  municipal  and  racial  strength  in 
every  quarter  of  that  world.  And  for  our 
purpose  this  decay  is  most  visible  in  the  de- 
cline of  sculpture  considered  as  a fine  art. 

Considered  merely  as  a record,  sculpture 
existed  very  late.  The  reliefs  of  Trajan’s 
column,  representing  the  march  of  his 
triumphant  army  in  the  lands  which  we  now 
call  Hungary  and  Transylvania,  and  those 
on  the  Antonine  column  of  similar  subject, 
tell  the  story  of  Roman  frontier  wars  and  as 
historical  documents  are  of  singular  value. 

[72] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

They  have  lost  what  is  for  us  the  real 
essence  of  sculpture,  its  charm  as  an  appeal 
to  our  eyes,  accustomed  to  compare  the 
arts  of  many  epochs.  The  sarcophagi  of 
the  time  show  the  same  decline  of  the 
artistic  spirit.  The  sculptures  on  the  arch 
of  Constantine  erected  about  315  a.  d.  are 
either  taken  from  earlier  buildings,  not  of 
the  Augustan  age  but  furnishing  sculptures 
immeasurably  superior  to  those  that  are  put 
beside  them  ; or  are  of  Constantine’s  time 
and  singularly  base  and  trivial.  Greco- 
Roman  art  was  dead  when  they  were 
wrought ; and  for  six  hundred  years  there- 
after sculpture  was  destined  to  sleep  in  all 
the  western  lands.  The  Greek  impetus,  so 
long  carried  on  by  Roman  admiration  and 
Roman  energy,  had  faded  out  of  the  world, 
and  there  was  as  yet  nothing  to  replace  it. 

Now,  the  revival  of  sculpture  in  the  tenth 
century  is  one  of  the  most  curious  things  in 
history.  What  were  the  influences  at  work 
to  cause  a decided  advance  in  this  art  at  a 
time  when  Europe  was  still  sunk  in  bar- 
barism? The  country  was  thinly  settled, 
[73] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  populace  destitute  of  comforts  and  of 
the  commonest  education,  the  feudal  system 
with  all  its  abuses  remaining  the  one  pro- 
tection against  anarchy,  and  the  monastic 
system  with  all  its  degradation  affording  the 
one  shelter  for  learning  and  thought.  And 
yet  as  early  as  the  ninth  century  there  is  a 
marked  advance  in  the  fine  arts,  the  arts  of 
mere  adornment  giving  place  to  those  which 
combine  thought  of  some  importance  and 
some  subtlety  with  the  decorative  principle. 

If  our  business  were  with  historical 
sequence  as  a principal  subject,  we  should 
have  difficulty  here  in  tracing  the  connec- 
tion between  the  decaying  Roman  spirit  and 
the  growing  modern  energy.  For  our  pur- 
pose of  comparative  study  it  is  well  to  skip 
at  once  to  the  twelfth  century  and  to  look 
at  the  sculpture  of  a great  Romanesque 
church. 

The  Romanesque  church  conceived  by 
the  builders  of  the  old  Cathedral  of  Chartres 
(Eure-et-Loir),  has  wholly  disappeared ; but 
when,  about  1130,  the  two  towers  of  the 
west  front  were  built,  the  gable  was  ad- 
[74] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

vanced  between  them  in  such  a way  as  to 
lengthen  the  nave  by  two  bays.  At  that 
time  the  statues  which  adorn  the  west  por- 
tal of  three  doorways  were  either  wholly 
new,  completed  for  this  very  rebuilding,  or 
else  they  were  so  recently  completed  that 
the  enterprising  and  vigorous  bishop  and 
his  most  able  helpers,  the  master  builders 
of  the  work,  were  entirely  content  with 
them,  and  were  proud  to  set  them  up  in 
their  new  place.  There  are  over  700  stat- 
ues on  that  front,  but  we  are  concerned 
at  present  with  two  or  three  individ- 
uals among  them,  idealized  portraits  of 
two  kings,  a queen  and  a prelate.  The 
photograph,  Plate  XIX,  is  taken  from  the 
southern  jamb  of  the  middle  or  “ royal  ” 
doorway — from  the  church  itself.  There 
are  four  of  those  statues  in  the  splayed 
jamb  of  the  doorway,  each  backed  up  by  a 
round,  engaged  column,  and  then  outside 
of  those  columns  is  a fourth  column  with- 
out an  added  statue,  but  this  is  a piece  of 
repair,  the  director  of  the  works  having 
very  properly  preferred  to  leave  that  angle 
[75] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

unsymmetrical— without  the  statue  which 
it  should  have  received — rather  than  to 
replace  the  lost  ancient  piece  by  a modern 
solecism. 

Plate  XX  shows  two  statues  which  adorn 
the  lowermost  part  of  the  arched  roof  of 
this  porch  ; that  is,  they  are  two  out  of  the 
six  which  stand  on  the  same  level  as  the 
figures  sculptured  on  the  lintel  over  the 
doorway  itself.  XX  A is  the  left-hand  or 
northernmost  figure  on  the  northern  side, 
XX  B is  the  middle  figure  on  the  southern 
side.  These  are  two  of  the  four-and-twenty 
Elders  of  the  Apocalypse,  only  that,  as  the 
ancient  version  speaks  of  the  “ stringed  in- 
struments ” (citharas)  instead  of  harps  as 
in  the  English  Bible,  so  these  two  Elders 
carry,  the  one  a curious  instrument  of 
strings  drawn  upon  a frame,  the  other  a 
violin  or  rather  a viola  of  ancient  form. 
These  heads  are,  then,  ideal  altogether, 
which  means  that  the  artist  was  not  obliged 
to  give  the  facial  character  of  any  living 
person,  but  studied  his  model  or  models  as 
far  as  he  pleased,  creating  the  heads  and 
[76] 


Plate  XIX. — CHARTRES  CATHEDRAL,  WEST  FRONT.  PART  OF  THE  SOUTH 
JAMB  OF  THE  MIDDLE  DOORWAY. 


A B 

Plate  XX. — CHARTRES  CATHEDRAL,  MIDDLE  DOORWAY  OF  WEST  FRONT: 
STATUES  IN  THE  ARCHED  HEAD  OF  THE  PORCH. 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

faces  from  out  of  his  memory  or  from  the 
examples  before  him,  or  from  the  combina- 
tion of  both.  So  with  the  drapery  ; we  are 
not  to  assume  that  in  these  figures  or  in  the 
portrait  statues  of  the  great  jambs  below, 
there  has  been  any  specially  careful  copying 
of  the  dress  of  the  times.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  the  dress  of  the  higher  clergy  was 
in  a way  comely,  grave  and  dignified,  giv- 
ing fine  forms  and  much  gracefulness  of 
bearing  to  a well-built  man  so  draped,  and 
as  the  robes  of  nobles  and  noble  ladies  when 
in  their  “ weeds  of  peace  ” were  also  ample 
and  dignified,  so  the  artist  was  surrounded 
by  sufficiently  good  material  and  in  suffi- 
cient quantity. 

All  these  figures  alike  are  treated  with 
special  reference  to  their  purpose  as  archi- 
tectural decoration.  That  is  not  to  be  lost 
sight  of  for  a moment,  because,  in  order  to 
understand  the  point  of  view  of  the  artist 
(always  the  first  and  chief  thing  to  observe), 
we  must  keep  constantly  in  touch  with  that 
controlling  influence  of  the  arts  of  France 
in  the  twelfth  century.  The  greatest  school 
[77] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  decorative  sculpture  which  the  world 
has  ever  seen  was  in  process  of  evolution. 
As  compared  with  the  Romanesque  sculp- 
ture of  which  these  Chartres  statues  are 
good,  though  not  the  best  specimens,  and 
with  the  Gothic  sculpture  which  succeeded 
this,  nothing  else  which  the  world  of  art 
knows  is  of  equal  value  when  considered 
as  a part  of  architectural  display.  The 
Greeks  in  their  greatest  time  did  not  turn 
their  attention  to  that  scheme  of  enriching 
buildings  by  sculpture  closely  fitted  to  its 
purpose  ; the  Greeks  of  later  times  did  not, 
so  far  as  we  know,  conduct  the  study  far 
enough,  though  pursuing  it  in  such  monu- 
ments as  the  Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus, 
the  bounding  wall  of  Trysa,  the  Lion 
Tombs  of  Lycia  ; the  Romans,  though  they 
tried  it  seriously  (see  Chapters  III  and  X), 
had  not  at  their  command  sufficient  talent, 
sufficiently  trained,  to  do  the  work  aright. 
It  was  left  for  the  Frenchmen  of  the  twelfth 
century  to  teach  the  world  what  sculpture 
might  be  when  affiliated  closely  with  archi- 
tecture, and  what  architecture  might  be- 
[78] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

come  when  supplied  with  an  unlimited 
decoration  of  excellent  sculpture  ; and  the 
thirteenth  century  was  destined  to  empha- 
size and  to  urge  anew  that  noble  lesson. 
Even  the  work  of  two  centuries  later,  the 
llamboyant  sculpture,  was  but  an  enlarge- 
ment, even  a refinement  (though  refine- 
ment may  often  be  too  sophisticated  to  re- 
tain its  full  strength)  of  the  same  artistic 
truth. 

Consider  that  Gothic  sculpture  to  which 
allusion  has  been  made  ; let  us  look  at  its 
very  finest  examples — at  least  those  ex- 
amples which  are  the  most  faultless,  the 
nearest  in  their  sculpturesque  qualities  to 
the  plastic  art  of  the  Greeks.  We  will  not 
look  for  the  same  spirit  in  the  French  work 
of  1250  as  in  the  Greek  work  of  seventeen 
centuries  before  ; but  a similar  longing  for 
great  achievements  in  the  modelling  of  fig- 
ures, the  truthfulness  of  pose,  the  gesture, 
the  characteristic  forms  as  seen  through 
and  beneath  the  drapery,  this,  combined 
with  the  drapery  itself  treated  in  the  no- 
blest and  most  sculpturesque  way,  we  have 
[79] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

a right  to  expect  of  the  thirteenth  century 
Frenchman,  and  we  shall  not  be  disap- 
pointed in  our  search  for  it. 

Plate  XXI  shows  a part  of  the  middle  door- 
way in  the  west  front  of  Reims  Cathedral, 
four  of  the  statues  of  the  north  jamb.  The 
extremely  elongated  character  of  the  Char- 
tres statues  is  not  seen  here  ; these  figures 
are  hardly  more  slender  and  tall  than  a 
modern  sculptor  would  think  appropriate 
to  his  purpose.  Even  the  modern  sculptor 
of  the  academic  teaching  now  in  fashion, 
would  think  himself  free  to  increase  the 
relative  height  of  his  figures  for  a definite 
purpose.  He  would  think  himself  free  to 
do  so — it  does  not  follow  that  he  would 
always  use  the  privilege.  For  let  this 
be  considered  : when  a certain  equestrian 
statue  was  exhibited  about  the  last  year  of 
the  nineteenth  century  and  it  was  noted 
that  the  rider,  seated  upon  his  war  saddle, 
had  such  a length  of  limb  that  the  whole 
foot  and  some  inches  of  the  ankle  (or  the 
boot  thereunto  corresponding)  were  to  be 
seen  projecting  downwards  beneath  the 
[80] 


Plate  XXI. — REIMS  CATHEDRAL:  MIDDLE  DOORWAY  OF  WEST  FRONT;  PART  OF  NORTH  JAMB. 


ARTISTS,  CLOSE  OF  FIFTEENTH  CENTURY. 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

belly  of  the  horse,  this  wholly  untruthful 
representation  of  the  facts  of  nature  was 
defended  by  the  sculptor  and  by  his 
friends,  on  the  ground  of  the  unusually 
great  stature  of  the  officer  whose  portrait 
was  in  hand,  and  the  supposed  necessity 
of  insisting  on  the  fact  of  the  relative 
height  of  his  figure  ; also  on  the  ground 
that  the  pedestal  was  to  be  extremely  high 
and  that  the  figure  would  appear  foreshort- 
ened. But  that  question,  as  to  whether  such 
a device  was  justifiable  in  art,  was  carried 
up  to  a tribunal  of  two  or  three  sculptors 
having  the  best  French  academic  teaching, 
and  they  said  with  one  voice  that  their 
schooling  had  been  the  other  way,  that 
they  had  been  told  to  avoid  such  tricks, 
“ for,  of  course,  the  eye  of  the  spectator  al- 
lows for  such  foreshortening  as  would  be 
found  in  even  a much  higher  placing  of  the 
statue,  as  upon  a high  wall ; and,  as  for  the 
unusual  height  of  the  man — it  was  not  the 
horse  that  should  be  dwarfed  to  produce  that 
effect.”  The  Greek  warriors  of  the  Parthe- 
non frieze  are  represented  astride  of  horses 
[81] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

not  bigger  than  ponies,  but  this  is  evidently 
done  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  bring- 
ing the  heads  of  the  mounted  men  down  to 
a level  with  the  heads  of  those  who  stand 
erect — the  Isocephalic  Principle,  as  it  is 
called — for  this  piece  of  convention  is  so 
far  recognized  as  to  receive  a Greek  name. 
Indeed  in  Slab  23  in  the  west  frieze,  a 
youth  stands  beside  his  horse,  and  as  he 
stands  his  raised  right  arm  allows  daylight 
to  show  between  the  elbow  and  the  hori- 
zontal line  of  his  horse’s  back — so  diminu- 
tive are  the  steeds  of  those  gallant  Greeks. 
Statuary  would  hardly  allow  such  a devia- 
tion of  fact  as  the  Greek  of  the  Phidian 
time  thought  he  had  control  of,  when  it 
concerned  the  matter  of  a low  relief  of 
great  extent  and  elaboration.  But  indeed 
these  various  opinions  set  forth  in  the  prac- 
tice of  sculptors  of  many  periods  merely 
point  to  a freedom  enjoyed  by  the  artist, 
and  which  we  have  no  right  to  refuse  to  the 
twelfth  century  workman  with  his  strongly 
felt  need  of  making  his  figures  look  like 
the  columns  which  accompany  and  support 
[82] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

them,  or  to  the  thirteenth  century  work- 
man with  his  greater  freedom,  his  wider 
knowledge,  his  more  ample  means  of  ex- 
pressing his  thought  in  sculpture  without 
injury  to  the  architectural  background. 

For  two  hundred  years  the  school  of 
mediaeval  art  retained  its  individuality,  and 
its  power,  when  checked  in  its  advance  by 
war  and  public  distress  to  recover  itself 
rapidly  and  begin  a new  life.  Thus,  while 
France  was  struggling  with  civil  war  aided 
by  the  invasion  of  the  English  kings, 
other  nations  of  northern  Europe  went  on 
with  the  development  of  sculpture,  and  the 
dominions  of  the  French  sovereign  were 
themselves  ready  for  a swift  and  brilliant 
blossoming  out  of  the  art  of  the  fifteenth 
century  when  peace  was  restored.  With 
the  year  1450  we  may  mark  the  full  dis- 
play in  France  of  architecture  which  we  call 
flamboyant,  and  this  brought  with  it  a very 
splendid  sculpture  with  characteristics  all  its 
own.  We  consider  Michel  Colomb  as  the 
master  of  that  art,  but  there  lived  at  the 
same  time  and  worked  in  harmony  with 
[83] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

him  admirable  sculptors  in  France,  in 
Flanders,  in  those  countries  of  the  Upper 
Rhine  where  the  Dukes  of  Burgundy  held 
sway,  and  notably  in  Germany.  This  is 
the  art  whose  disappearance  one  regrets  so 
sincerely,  and  has  such  frequent  occasion  to 
regret.  The  sculpture  of  the  North  died  in 
its  young  development,  swept  away  by  the 
invading  spirit  of  the  classical  Renaissance 
coming  over  the  mountains  from  Italy. 
There  had  been,  since  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  the  marked  disposition  in  Italy  to 
study  the  works  of  Greco-Roman  antiquity 
as  the  only  true  art  of  form,  but  this  proc- 
ess of  thought  and  this  labor  was  little 
known  to  the  people  of  the  North,  who 
went  on  with  their  own  natural  evolution 
in  fine  art,  influenced  on  the  one  side  by 
Flemish  and  on  the  other  side  by  ancient 
national  traditions,  and  occasionally  but  only 
occasionally,  invasions  from  Italy  bringing 
with  them  rather  an  earlier  (or  semi- 
mediseval)  influence  than  that  of  classical 
revival.  So  in  France  we  have  of  the 
years  between  1450  and  1500  such  sculp- 

[84] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

tures  as  those  of  the  Abbey  of  Solesmes,  of 
the  famous  Church  of  Saint  Riquier  near 
Abbeville  in  the  far  north  of  France,  and 
in  the  Cathedral  of  Abbeville  itself,  and  in 
such  statues  as  those  couched  upon  the 
tombs  of  the  princes  who  lie  at  rest  in  the 
Church  of  Brou  in  the  far  southeast  of 
France. 

Plate  XXII  shows  a group  of  the  sculp- 
tures of  the  Abbey  of  Solesmes,  showing  what 
French  sculpture  was  seeking  during  the 
last  quarter  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
figure  on  the  right  is  a celebrated  piece  of 
realism,  the  Joseph  of  Arimathea  who  holds 
the  foot  of  the  shroud  in  the  group  repre- 
senting the  burial  of  Christ ; the  figure 
seated  and  with  clasped  hands  at  his  left  is 
the  lamenting  Magdalen  and  the  female 
figures  beyond  are  two  of  the  women  who 
attend  the  Mother  of  Christ — the  right- 
hand  figure  of  the  two  holding  a box  of 
ointment.  The  author  of  these  pieces  can- 
not be  absolutely  identified.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  they  were  all  wrought,  this 
whole  elaborate  composition  together  with 
[85] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  other  groups  which  make  of  that  chapel 
so  marvellous  a place  of  pilgrimage,  before 
the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The  char- 
acteristic of  them  all  is,  no  doubt,  realism — 
a close  study  of  the  human  form  in  its  at- 
titudes of  exertion  and  of  self-centred  grief 
— and  of  costume  as  the  sculptor  saw  it 
around  him,  but  subdued  and  convention- 
alized into  drapery.  The  last  and  highest 
merit  of  the  art  of  form,  beautiful  and  in- 
telligent modelling,  whether  of  the  whole 
person  or  of  the  separate  parts  of  the  body, 
the  ankles,  the  wrists,  the  neck,  the  cheek 
— this  indeed  is  not  as  yet  attained.  The 
need  of  further  development,  decades  of 
study,  a half  century  of  constant,  diligent, 
loving  study  of  nature  and  translation  of 
nature  into  the  terms  of  art,  is  all  as  obvious 
as  the  intrinsic  merit  of  the  pieces  them- 
selves. But  it  is  something  that  every  lover 
of  sculpture  must  regret — the  denial  to  this 
splendid  fifteenth  century  art  of  the  North 
of  its  due ; of  that  which  the  world  owes 
every  good  school  of  art,  a chance  to 
develop  itself  free  from  foreign  influences. 

[86] 


The  European  Middle  Ages 

But  it  was  not  to  be ; the  Italian  influence 
was  already  strong  in  France  by  the  year 
1500  ; and  this  was  the  influence  of  a cen- 
tury-long study  of  Greco-Roman  art.  Then 
with  1515  came  the  reign  of  Francis  I, 
“The  great  king  of  the  Renaissance ” and 
the  school  of  realism  disappeared  before  the 
school  of  classical  refinement. 

The  reader  should  not  forget  that  the 
study  of  the  technical  workman,  the  pro- 
fessional, the  man  who  is  to  spend  his  life 
in  achievement,  must  be  very  largely 
directed  towards  those  practical  matters  of 
hand-work  which  constitute,  indeed,  his 
daily  needs.  The  sculptor  must,  first  of  all, 
know  how  to  produce  in  soft  material  which 
he  moulds,  or  in  hard  material  which  he 
cuts,  whatever  forms  he  may  perceive  even 
dimly  in  his  mind.  Therefore  it  is  that  the 
close  daily  and  hourly  study  of  the  sculptor 
will  be  generally  directed  towards  that  form 
of  art  which  promises  the  most  to  him  as 
its  pupil.  He  sees  what  the  new  invading 
school  has  to  offer  in  the  way  of  technical 
achievement,  and  forgets  his  earlier  tradi- 
[87] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

tions  in  the  joy  of  the  new  discovery.  The 
learned,  the  scientific,  the  highly  organized 
art  will  always  carry  it  over  the  more  un- 
trained and  more  unconscious  art,  because 
each  separate  workman  feels  that  there  is  so 
much  to  be  gained  for  him  in  studying 
minutely  these  more  faultless  and,  as  he 
thinks,  more  intelligent  processes.  No 
sculptor  can  be  expected  to  pursue  uninter- 
ruptedly the  work  which  he  had  begun, 
when  he  sees  at  his  side  other  work  which 
is  certainly  more  full  of  knowledge,  even 
if  an  occasional  doubt  comes  to  him 
whether  this  new  art  is  wiser,  or  expresses 
thought  better,  or  has  better  thought  to  ex- 
press, than  that  on  which  he  has  been 
brought  up. 


[88] 


CHAPTER  V 


THE  ITALIAN  REVIVAL 

For  the  art  of  the  neo-classic  period  it  is  to 
Italy  that  we  must  go  first — to  the  work  of 
the  fifteenth  century  Italians.  The  Southern 
contemporaries  of  those  artists  in  the  north 
whose  names  we  associate  with  the  flam- 
boyant architecture  of  France  and  the  florid 
style  in  Germany,  are  men  of  a different 
stripe.  There  is  no  longing  for  the  ultra- 
picturesque,  no  love  of  the  fantastic  and 
over-strenuous,  in  their  work.  On  the 
other  hand  there  is  to  be  seen  the  most 
beautiful  mingling  of  a gentle,  almost 
effeminate  grace  with  a wider  knowledge  of 
sculptural  possibilities  than  had  been 
possessed  by  the  men  of  Europe  since  the 
second  century.  The  Italians  had  been 
studying  what  they  could  find  easily  of 
Greco-Roman  remains  ; but  it  is  wonderful 
to  note  how  little  they  possessed  : and  also 
how  poor  was  that  little,  in  comparison  with 
what  was  still  underground,  or  hidden  in 
[89] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

distant  Greece,  and  which  has  become 
known  to  the  modern  world.  The  modern 
world  has  but  a few  fragments  of  the  vast 
treasures  which  Pausanias  saw,  or  might 
have  seen  : but  even  those  fragments  were 
nearly  all  unknown  to  the  men  of  the 
Risorgimento.  If  we  search  in  the  records 
of  the  fourteenth  century  and  again  in 
the  fuller  history  of  the  fifteenth  century 
it  will  become  evident  to  us  that  the 
student  living  in  a small  Italian  city, 
and  with  only  horseback  travelling  at  his 
command,  had  within  reach  only  two  or 
three  pieces  of  genuine  antique  work,  and 
those  two  or  three  pieces  very  often  inferior 
— even  debased — in  artistic  style.  The  tra- 
dition is  that  the  first  of  all  modern  sculptors, 
Niccola  Pisano,  studied,  especially,  a Roman 
sarcophagus ; and  the  identical  piece  is 
pointed  out  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa,  its 
front  covered  with  a double  composition  in 
high  relief.  This  is  indeed  a very  fine 
piece : Vasari  says  that  the  Pisans  brought 
such  trophies  from  afar  in  their  ships ; but 
there  were  few  such  relics  above  ground  in 
[90] 


The  Italian  Revival 


the  thirteenth  century.  The  marbles  with 
which  are  filled  the  long  galleries  of  the 
Vatican,  of  Naples,  of  the  Uffizi,  and  the 
smaller  museums  scattered  over  Italy,  had 
not  seen  the  light  for  a thousand  years, 
when  the  artists  of  the  early  revival  were 
trying  to  steady  their  minds  by  ancient 
examples ; the  statues  and  reliefs  were 
covered  up  with  debris,  the  ruins  made  by 
war,  tumult  and  neglect.  It  is  a subject 
which  has  not  been  studied  to  the  bottom — 
the  spirit  in  which  those  early  men  went  to 
the  Roman  remains  at  hand  for  anatomical 
knowledge  and  for  sculptural  and  work- 
manlike modelling  and  cutting.  They 
took,  too  often,  Roman  work  of  the  second 
century  a.  d.  for  fine  Greek  sculpture : and 
their  modelling  was,  to  the  end  of  the 
Risorgimento,  injured  by  this  fact, — that  is 
to  say  we  can  explain  in  this  way  a certain 
lack  of  skilled  technique  ; but  still  they  got 
from  their  examples  the  grand  style  of 
modelling,  while  they  rejected  the  narrow 
and  inconsequent  thought  which  alone 
those  sculptures  represent. 

[91] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Luca  della  Robbia  is  one  of  the  earliest 
of  the  great  men  and  one  of  the  most  indi- 
vidual among  them.  With  less  strength, 
at  least  with  less  robustness  than  Donatello, 
he  is  probably  a more  refined  artist,  and 
that  quality  of  refinement  is  shown  in  his 
group,  The  Visitation,  which  stands  in  the 
little  church  of  St.  John  in  Pistoja.  This, 
which  is  shown  in  our  Plate  XXIII,  is  a 
work  of  his  maturity.  It  is  one  of  his  not 
very  numerous  groups  “ in  the  round  ” and 
it  is  wrought  in  his  own  favorite  material, 
that  glazed,  hard  pottery  which  is  named 
from  him.  It  is  curious  to  see  how,  in  his 
evident  desire  to  impart  Sentiment  to  Form 
— to  seek  the  expression  of  sentiment  in 
form  alone — he  has  eschewed  for  this  one 
occasion  the  brilliant  and  solid  coloring  of 
his  glaze,  and  has  left  the  piece,  except 
for  slight  decorative  adjuncts,  in  that  ivory 
white  which  is  not  only  the  color  natural 
to  the  make  and  composition  of  the  ware, 
but  also  the  nearest  akin  to  the  tint  of 
white  marble  after  a short  exposure.  If, 
then,  we  regret  the  denial  to  the  flam* 
[92] 


Plate  XXIII. — THE  VISITATION,  BY  LUCA  DELLA  ROBBIA,  IN  CHURCH  OF 
S.  GIOVANNI  FOURCI VITAS  AT  PISTOJA.  WORK  OF  ABOUT  1435. 


Plate  XXIV. — RELIEF  INTENDED  FOR  ALTAR-BACK:  THE  MADONNA  BETWEEN  S,  LORENZO  AND  S,  LEONARDO; 
BY  MINO  DA  FIESOLE,  ABOUT  1465. 


The  Italian  Revival 


boy  ant  school  of  the  North  of  any  chance 
to  develop  its  own  realistic  methods  tending 
towards  picturesque  vivacity,  we  are  not  the 
less  delighted  with  the  Italian  practice  of 
rendering  simple  thought  and  feeling,  the 
thought  and  feeling  of  all  men,  in  this  re- 
fined and  unexaggerated  manner. 

A later  sculptor,  Mino  di  Giovanni  da 
Fiesole,  has,  in  his  delicate  fancy,  even 
more  of  the  taste  and  the  inspiration  of  an 
earlier  time  than  Luca  della  Robbia ; very 
much  more  than  the  famous,  the  energetic, 
the  forceful  Donatello,  who  yet  was  almost 
of  a previous  generation — so  early  in  the 
fifteenth  century  were  his  years  of  strength 
and  of  great  production.  The  charm  of 
Mino’s  work  is  not  to  be  explained  by  any 
words  which  the  language  supplies,  nor  has 
that  grace  ever  found  expression  or  explana- 
tion apart  from  its  own  chosen  medium. 
Ruskin  says  of  this  workman  that  his  chisel 
seems  to  cut  life  and  to  carve  breath,  and 
even  the  rushing  eloquence,  the  too  ample 
verbiage  of  Ruskin  must  have  been  found 
unequal  to  the  attempt  to  explain  to  others 
[93] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

what  a lover  of  sculpture  sees  in  those  sim- 
ple conceptions.  It  is  not  known  what 
were  the  peculiarities  of  Mino’s  training 
which  helped  him  to  be  the  singularly  per- 
fect sculptor  of  sentiment  which  he  became. 
In  the  great  churches  of  Central  Italy,  his 
wall-tombs  and  his  admirable  altar-pieces 
appeal,  more  strongly  than  any  work  of  the 
times,  to  that  general  sentiment,  that  non- 
artistic  feeling  for  what  is  delicate  and  re- 
fined, which  persons  not  artists  but  gifted 
with  the  inquisitive  and  searching  eye,  feel 
to  an  extent  greater  than  sculptors.  Thus 
in  the  Church  of  the  Badia  ( i . e.,  abbadia 
or  conventual  church)  of  Florence  there  is, 
in  addition  to  several  most  important  and 
charming  wall-tombs,  a ceremonial  altar- 
piece  with  three  panels  representing  the 
Madonna,  San  Lorenzo  on  her  right  (the 
spectator’s  left)  and  San  Leonardo  (see  Plate 
XXIV).  These  altar-backs  were  provided 
in  case  of  their  possible  need.  It  seems  to 
have  been  felt  that  sooner  or  later  an  altar 
would  be  erected  here  in  accordance  with 
that  easy-going  Italian  way  of  handling 
[94] 


The  Italian  Revival 


sacred  appliances,  disregarding  boldly  the 
tradition  about  orientation  so  dearly  loved 
in  the  north  ; and  that,  at  all  events,  the 
wall  needed  the  beautiful  relief  in  that  par- 
ticular place.  Similar  pieces  by  Mino  him- 
self exist  in  the  Cathedral  at  Fiesole,  in  the 
Church  of  Saint  Ambrogio  at  Milan,  in  one 
of  the  great  basilicas  at  Rome.  In  Santa 
Maria  del  Popolo  are  two  magnificent  reta- 
bles by  unknown  hands  ; and  in  the  Church 
of  Santa  Croce,  the  special  gathering  place 
for  noble  tombs,  there  is  also  by  the  mighty 
hand  of  Donatello  a relief  of  The  Annuncia- 
tion, unique  among  his  works  and  unsur- 
passed in  beauty  and  dignity  by  anything 
since  the  time  of  the  Greeks. 

The  same  delicate  human  interest  which 
inspires  the  three  figures  shown  in  Plate 
XXIV,  which  are  treated  almost  as  if  they 
were  statues  “ in  the  round  ” is  to  be  found 
also  in  the  beautiful  Justice  carved  on  the 
smooth  wall  back  of  the  sarcophagus  of 
Bernardo  Giugni,  and  the  still  more  at- 
tractive Charity  adorning  in  like  manner 
the  tomb  of  Hugo,  Marquis  of  Tuscany. 

[95] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

These  two  monuments,  also  the  work  of 
Mino,  are  among  the  most  important  of  the 
lovely  wall-tombs  of  Central  Italy.  Each 
contains  a recumbent  figure,  laid  on  the 
bier  above  the  sarcophagus  in  w'hich  the 
body  is  supposed  to  be  (and  probably  is) 
inurned.  Each  tomb  has,  carved  upon  the 
wall  above,  the  portrait  of  the  dead,  that 
emblematic  relief  of  which  there  has  been 
mention,  and  above  that  again,  in  the 
lunette  of  the  arched  fronton,  a delicate 
piece  of  relief  sculpture — in  the  one  case  a 
Madonna  and  Child,  in  the  other  a medal- 
lion portrait  of  the  dead  man.  Each  tomb 
has  an  exquisite  architectural  setting  with 
pilasters  and  a delicately  wrought  basement, 
and  upon  this  basement  an  inscription, 
with  angels  in  relief  which  seem  to  support 
its  tablet,  is  in  each  case  a most  refined 
composition. 

It  is  from  such  work  as  this  by  Rossel- 
lino,  Benedetto  da  Rovezzano,  Jacopo  della 
Quercia  and  Mino  that  the  famous  and 
magnificent  works  of  Michelangelo,  those 
well-known  tombs  of  the  princes  of  the 
[96] 


The  Italian  Revival 

House  of  the  Medici,  took  their  origin  : but 
they  are  the  work  of  the  sculptor’s  later 
life,  when  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  had 
grown  feeble  in  Italy,  and  when  the  per- 
sonality of  the  man,  Buonarroti,  had  come 
to  the  front,  for  better  and  for  worse. 

The  Pieta  of  St.  Peter’s  Church  in  Rome 
was  completed  when  Michelangelo  was  a 
very  young  man  (see  Plate  XXV).  It  is 
Florentine  fifteenth  century  sculpture  of 
exquisite  grouping  and  faultless  modelling, 
but  filled  with  a new  and  very  individual 
power  over  the  surfaces  both  of  the  nude 
and  of  the  draped  figure.  The  Mother  of 
Christ  holds  the  dead  body  across  her 
knees  : and  it  has  often  been  noted  that  the 
female  form  is  shown  as  carrying  easily  the 
great  weight,  while  the  mother’s  face  is 
youthful,  impossibly  so,  for  a natural 
woman.  But  Michelangelo  himself  ex- 
plained this  as  the  expression  of  a pure  and 
holy  life,  apart  from  all  supernal  influence ; 
and  indeed  the  face  has  but  little  decided 
expression,  no  bitter  grief,  no  ardent  love  ; 
the  face  is  contemplative  and  no  more. 

[97] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

And  the  lover  of  pure  sculpture,  of  the  art 
of  form  for  its  own  sake,  may  love  this 
most  of  all  the  master’s  works  : for  it  is  free 
from  that  striving  after  the  violent  and  the 
strange  of  which  there  is  said  below  what 
has  to  be  said. 

As  a sculptor,  Michelangelo’s  life  was 
a series  of  disappointments.  He  was  in  his 
own  thought  a worker  in  marble ; but  his 
greatest  achievements  are  in  fresco  paint- 
ing. The  great  Moses  of  the  tomb  of  Julius 
II,  the  Madonna  in  a church  at  Bruges  in 
Belgium,  the  Risen  Christ  of  the  Church  of 
S.  Maria  Sopra  Minerva  are  almost  the 
only  completed  pieces  of  importance,  other 
than  those  we  have  been  considering  and 
have  now  to  consider.  Much  as  the 
special  student  of  art  or  the  worshipper  of 
genius  may  love  the  Bacchus  and  the 
Saint  John  Baptist  of  the  Bargello,  the 
David  with  its  curious  history,  the  reliefs, 
and  the  unfinished  pieces  like  the  Saint 
Matthew  and  the  very  late  Pieta  of  Flor- 
ence ; that  affection  is  given  to  the  inferior 
though  still  characteristic  work  of  one  of 
[98] 


Plate  XXV. — the  pietA,  by  Michelangelo,  in  the  church  of  s.  pietro 

IN  VATICANO,  ROME,  IN  FIRST  (EASTERNMOST)  CHAPEL  OF  SOUTH  AISLE. 


Plate  XXVI. — tomb  of  lorenzo  dei  medici,  by  Michelangelo;  in  so-called 

NEW  SACRISTY,  CHURCH  OF  S.  LORENZO,  FLORENCE. 


The  Italian  Revival 

the  most  powerful  and  original  artists  who 
have  lived. 

The  Medicean  monuments  were  under- 
taken as  wall-tombs  (after  an  earlier  at- 
tempt of  another  sort  had  been  abandoned), 
but  the  abounding  energy  of  the  artist, 
striving  always  for  wider  scope,  attempting 
more  and  ever  more  ample  means  of  ex- 
pression, forced  upon  the  wealthy  family 
which  governed  the  republic  of  those  days 
the  more  grandiose  scheme  which  we  now 
see  fully  realized.  It  is  a square  room,  not 
large  when  considered  as  the  sacristy  of  a 
great  church,  but  still  spacious : and  its  in- 
terior ordonnance  is  of  quite  surprising 
dignity  and  simple  grandeur.  This,  the  so- 
called  Nuova  Sagrestia  was  built  expressly 
for  the  tomb,  and  indeed  has  received  an 
architectural  treatment  which  makes  it  a 
single  design,  embracing  and  combining 
into  one  the  two  separate  tombs  of  Giuliano, 
the  Duke  of  Nemours,  and  Lorenzo,  the 
Duke  of  Urbino.  These  two  princes  died 
in  1516  and  1519,  but  Michelangelo  was 
not  a patient  subject  to  this  encroaching 
[99] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

family  which  had  destroyed  the  liberties  of 
his  beloved  Florence,  and  the  sculpture 
was  never  completed.  We  may  imagine 
that  after  his  final  abandonment  of  it, 
any  unfinished  details  of  the  architecture 
could  be  and  would  have  been  carried  out 
in  strict  accordance  with  that  which  al- 
ready existed.  We  know  and  we  see  that 
no  one  has  dared  to  touch  the  sculptures 
which  had  been  left  almost  from  the  hand 
and  chisel  of  the  great  sculptor  whose  im- 
pressive personality  seems  to  have  filled  up 
the  Italy  of  his  time.  Plate  XXVI  gives 
the  tomb  of  Lorenzo  with  its  immediate  ar- 
chitectural setting. 

The  monuments  include,  each  two  gigan- 
tic recumbent  figures,  those  set  upon  the 
cover  of  the  sarcophagus  in  which  the  body 
is  laid,  and  the  seated  portrait  statue,  how 
completely  idealized  we  do  not  know,  of 
the  prince  in  whose  name  the  tomb  was  set 
up.  The  reclining  figures  are  known  by 
names  which  were  affixed  to  them  even  in 
the  sculptor’s  lifetime,  and  which  were  cer- 
tainly recognized  and  accepted  in  a way  by 
[100] 


The  Italian  Revival 

Michelangelo  himself.  Those  of  the  tomb 
of  Lorenzo  shown  in  Plate  XXVI,  are  al- 
ways called  Twilight  and  Dawn,  and  we  are 
to  accept  the  female  statue  as  Dawn  chiefly 
because  the  Aurora  of  antiquity  is  recog- 
nized as  a goddess  ; while  the  marble  giant 
who  reclines  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
sarcophagus  is,  by  exclusion,  the  Evening 
Twilight.  It  is  a pity,  perhaps,  that  these 
names  have  become  so  firmly  fixed  upon 
our  tradition,  upon  our  historical  and  ar- 
tistic associations  with  the  monument. 
Aurora  and  Evening  for  Lorenzo's  tomb, 
Day  and  Night  for  Giuliano's  tomb — what 
are  those  names  to  this  inquiry?  What 
have  those  names  to  do  with  the  magnificent 
sculpture  which  Michelangelo  thought,  as 
sculpture,  were  the  proper  appendages  of 
his  portrait  statues  ? The  female  figure, 
Night,  is  complete  and  has  received  a high 
polish,  Michelangelo's  practice  in  this  set- 
ting, as  many  will  think,  a worthy  example 
to  those  lovers  of  art  who  dislike  polish  as 
giving  an  effect  supposedly  “ unnatural 
as  if  it  were  the  business  of  a statue  in 
[101] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

veined  or  in  pure  white  marble  to  look  like 
nature  ! The  other  statue,  the  great  colos- 
sus called  Day,  has  never  been  completed, 
the  head  at  least  is  most  rudely  blocked 
out,  showing  the  chisel  marks  in  every 
part  and  affording  an  excellent  suggestion 
of  the  essential  character  of  noble  sculpture 
in  marble.  It  is  one  reason  why  one  loves 
the  polish,  that  it  suggests  the  hard  and  en- 
during material — it  is  one  reason  why  one 
loves  to  see  the  half  wrought  head,  that  the 
slow  evolution  of  the  sculptor’s  thought  is 
more  clearly  seen  when  surprised  in  taking 
shape,  when  half  complete.  These  figures, 
moreover,  are  far  enough  from  being  any 
one’s  canon  of  form  ; the  gigantic  work  of 
Michelangelo  does  not  suggest  the  taking 
of  its  proportions  as  final  perfection.  It  is 
rather  as  a suggestion  of  the  almost  impos- 
sible, of  the  extreme  in  energy  and  in  rude 
force,  that  we  go  to  this  great  artist.  The 
Lorenzo  portrait  statue,  shown  in  Plate 
XXVI,  is,  on  the  other  hand,  rightly  named 
il  Pensieroso,  or  The  Thinker.  The  face  of 
it  was  for  many  years  so  shaded  that  indeed, 
[102] 


The  Italian  Revival 


it  could  not  be  distinguished  at  all.  At 
some  time  about  1875,  light  was  admitted 
to  the  New  Sacristy  in  greater  abundance 
and  from  other  directions  than  before,  and 
since  that  time  the  statue  has  been  visible 
as  other  statues  are. 

A curious  fact  has  been  the  great  loss  of 
interest  in  the  statue  itself  and  even  in  the 
whole  monument.  It  is  even  a surprise  to 
those  who  remember  the  statue  when  it 
was  still  possible  to  write  of  it  as  Samuel 
Rogers  did  : 

“ What  from  beneath  its  helm-like  bonnet  scowls? 

Is  it  a face  or  but  an  eyeless  skull  ? 

JTis  lost  in  shade,  but  like  the  basilisk 
It  fascinates  and  is  intolerable.  ’ ’ 

It  follows  from  this  change  that  the  latest 
writers  of  weight  on  Florentine  sculpture 
speak  of  the  tomb  without  any  of  that  old 
sense  of  awe  ; and  from  this  it  follows, 
again,  that  their  comments  are  far  less  heart- 
ily laudatory.  It  is  somewhat  the  rule,  dur- 
ing and  since  the  closing  years  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  to  treat  this  and  the  com- 
panion monument  as  works  of  the  Decadence 
[103] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

— certainly  as  works  of  Michelangelo’s 
later  and  less  tasteful  style,  a style  assumed 
to  be  closely  connected  with  the  admitted 
pomposity  and  false  dignity  of  some  of  his 
architectural  compositions.  Of  course  the 
actual  objection  to  the  monument  as  a 
work  of  sculpture  lies  in  the  forced  and  al- 
most grotesque  attitudes,  the  determined 
search  for  something  overstrained,  too  forci- 
ble, too  violent ; and  with  this  there  is  a 
feeling  shared  by  almost  all  lovers  of  the 
sculpture  of  the  time  in  Italy,  that  Michel- 
angelo was  very  ready  to  desert  nature  and 
nature’s  forms  altogether,  seeking  in  his 
profound  knowledge  of  the  body  and  all  its 
composing  parts  an  opportunity  to  create  a 
Nature  of  his  own,  in  which  movement 
should  be  more  violent,  muscles  more  pro- 
nounced, expressions  more  strongly  stamped 
upon  the  countenance,  than  is  to  be  seen 
in  human  life.  It  is  in  this  way,  undoubt- 
edly, that  the  real  Decadence  of  sculpture 
began  in  Italy.  The  most  marked  charac- 
teristic of  it  all  was  the  continual  striving 
of  imitative  minds  to  do  what  this  mighty 
[104] 


The  Italian  Revival 


and  original  mind  had  done,  and  the  first 
sculptors  of  the  decline  are  precisely  those 
who  were  the  closest  students  of  the  mas- 
ter, Baccio  Bandinelli,  Guglielmo  della 
Porta,  Raphael  da  Montelupo  and  Montor- 
soli.  Still,  as  this  brief  enquiry  has  little 
to  do  with  the  work  of  those  imitators,  and 
as  Chapter  VI,  which  deals  with  the  de- 
cline, has  much  better  men  than  they  to 
describe  and  to  appraise,  so  it  is  fitting  that 
this  chapter  be  closed  by  thoughts  about 
the  sculpture  of  two  men  who  were  exactly 
contemporary  with  Michelangelo : Jacopo 
Sansovino,  who  died  six  years  after  him, 
and  Benvenuto  Cellini,  whose  death-date  is 
the  next  year  again,  1571. 

The  greater  Sansovino  was  he  whose 
name,  as  known  to  his  parents,  was  Jacopo 
Tatti,  and  he  was  called  by  his  better  known 
surname  because  of  his  connection  through 
his  master  with  a little  town  near  Arezzo  in 
Tuscany.  He  lived  only  six  years  after  the 
death  of  his  great  contemporary,  and  yet  he 
seems  to  be  his  successor  as  supreme  sculptor 
of  Italy  : for  Michelangelo  was  caught  up 
[105] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

by  the  Papal  orders  and  turned  into  a 
painter  of  symbolical  and  Christian  subjects 
at  a time  so  early  that  it  left  the  greater 
part  of  Sansovino’s  busy  life  after  and  be- 
yond that  period.  From  the  time  when 
Michelangelo  began  in  earnest  upon  the 
ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  which  we  may 
fix  at  1510,  he,  only  thirty-five  years  old, 
was  able  to  produce  but  little  sculpture,  and 
it  was  just  at  that  time  that  Jacopo,  four 
years  younger,  began  to  be  employed  upon 
his  most  important  work. 

Michelangelo  was  sculptor  by  choice, 
painter  by  compulsion,  architect  because 
every  one  concerned  in  fine  art,  and  thought 
successful  in  it,  was  called  upon  by  some 
prince  or  prelate  to  design  buildings.  San- 
sovino was  sculptor  and  architect  from  the 
beginning,  architect  perhaps  first,  and  by 
his  earlier  teachings,  but  sculptor  also  be- 
cause in  the  good  times  of  art  the  man  who 
ordered  the  disposition  of  the  street  front 
was  compelled  to  carve,  or  at  least  to  model, 
the  compositions  which  were  to  form  its 
chief  glory.  Now,  Sansovino,  in  conse- 
[106] 


The  Italian  Revival 


quence  of  influences  which  it  is  hard  for  us 
to  trace,  shows  from  the  first  as  strong  a de- 
sire to  avoid  excess  as  his  more  famous  con- 
temporary always  showed  to  resort  to  it. 
We  cannot  be  sure  of  these  influences,  it  has 
been  said — but  assuredly  one  of  them  was 
the  close  connection  between  his  statuary 
and  his  own  architectural  designs.  Thus  in 
the  Loggetta  at  the  foot  of  that  Campanile 
in  Venice  which  fell  in  ruins  in  1902,  there 
was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  pieces  in 
Europe  of  skilled  disposition  of  sculpture ; 
a design  which  in  architectural  simplicity 
and  significance  alone  deserves  to  be  com- 
pared with  any  small  and  purely  decorative 
building  we  know.  This  was  built  by  San- 
sovino in  1540,  and  adorned  with  a broad 
attic  of  relief  sculpture  by  Girolamo  da  Fer- 
rara, bronze  gates  by  Antonio  Gai  (though 
these  are  of  later  date)  and  four  statues  by 
Sansovino  himself,  arranged  in  niches  of 
the  fagade  and  so  near  the  eye  that  for  once 
architectural  adornments  can  be  studied  as 
pure  sculpture.  Of  these  four  statues  we 
give  (in  Plate  XXVII)  the  Apollo,  which  is 
[107] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  statue  on  the  left  of  the  main  entrance 
to  the  Loggetta,  and  the  Minerva,  which  is 
the  farthest  towards  the  left,  or  south.  If, 
in  addition  to  these  we  could  give  the  other 
two  statues  of  the  series,  the  lovely  Madonna 
group  in  terra-cotta  which  this  same  Log- 
getta holds,  like  a shrine,  the  Bacchus  of 
the  National  Museum  of  Florence,  the  St. 
James  in  the  Cathedral  of  Florence,  and  the 
St.  Julian  carved  above  the  door  of  the 
church  dedicated  to  him  in  Venice,  we 
should  note  in  them  the  same  restrained  and 
yet  powerful  modelling  that  is  seen  in  the 
Apollo.  There  are  other  noble  Madonnas, 
in  Venice  and  in  Rome.  The  huge  statues 
at  the  head  of  the  great  out-of-door  stairs  in 
a courtyard  of  the  Doge’s  Palace  in  Venice, 
the  Neptune  and  the  Mars  which  give  that 
beautiful  perron  the  name  of  The  Giants’ 
Stairs,  are  indeed  conceived  in  a different 
spirit.  In  them  it  seems  as  if  something  of 
the  fire  and  fury  of  Michelangelo  inspired 
their  creator,  and  the  yielding  to  this  in- 
spiration has  caused  that  loss  of  charm 
which  comes  always  when  a man  is  trying 
[108] 


The  Italian  Revival 


to  do  that  which  it  is  not  in  his  nature  to 
do  successfully.  We  may  regret  the  willing 
abandonment  of  Michelangelo  to  force  and 
violence ; we  may  regret  it  deeply,  and  yet 
admire  to  the  full  even  the  work  in  which 
those  tendencies  showed  strongly  : but  in 
the  sculpture  of  the  less  mighty  man,  the 
lesser  genius,  the  inferior  though  still  clear 
and  truly  creative  intelligence,  we  find  the 
sculpture  of  force  and  violence  a little  ab- 
surd. The  mission  of  Sansovino  was  to  pre- 
serve some  of  the  vanishing  charm  of  the 
Risorgimento ; and  he  was  fitted  for  that  by 
his  simple  style,  his  freedom  from  manner- 
ism, and  by  a feeling  for  the  decorative  side 
of  art  such  as  befitted  a Venetian  artist. 
What  he  had  to  do  was  to  provide  regular, 
seemly,  well  marshalled  fronts  for  palaces, 
— these  being  the  natural  exteriors  of  well 
planned,  well  conceived,  well  built  edifices, 
— among  them  the  exquisite  library  of  Saint 
Mark,  chief  of  all  buildings  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  He  had  then  to  provide  as  the 
adornment  of  these,  amid  the  multitude  of 
sculptures  of  less  value  furnished  by  his 
[109] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

pupils  and  followers,  two  or  three  clearly 
noble  conceptions  of  his  own.  This  is  as 
much  as  to  say  that  he  came  very  near  to 
the  position  of  the  modern  architect  who,  if 
the  Fates  should  permit,  might  also  be  a 
sculptor  of  renown.  Is  it  conceivable  that 
in  our  time  a man  of  real  force  as  a sculptor 
would  deliberately  become  a master  builder 
and  devote  his  time  to  the  plan  and  ordon- 
nance  of  noble  buildings  ? Should  that 
come  to  pass  the  world  might  see — we  can- 
not tell — once  more,  a true  revival  of  archi- 
tectural art.  One  who  has  filled  his  mind 
with  the  charm  of  the  early  Renaissance 
and  loves  as  he  ought  to  love  the  works  of 
Donatello  and  Verocchio,  della  Quercia  and 
della  Robbia,  Mino  and  Rossellino,  will  be 
ready  to  think  the  statuary  of  Sansovino 
cold.  One  who  has  enjoyed  to  the  full  the 
grasp  and  swing  of  Michelangelo  will  be 
inclined  to  think  the  work  of  his  contem- 
porary tame.  This,  however,  it  is  safe  to 
promise,  that  if  a student  will  compare 
again  and  again  the  work  of  the  earlier 
men  and  the  greater  man  with  the  work 
[110] 


Plate  XXVII. — TWO  STATUES,  CALLED  MINERVA  and  apollo;  BY  JACOPO  SANSOVINO.  in  front  of 
LOGGETTA,  CAMPANILE  DI  S.  MARCO,  VENICE. 


Plate  XXVIII. — view  in  loggia  dei  lanzi,  Florence,  the  rape  of  the 

SABINES,  AND  HERCULES  KILLING  A CENTAUR.  BY  GIOVANNI  DA  BOLOGNA. 
THE  STATUE  BEYOND  IS  AN  ANTIQUE. 


The  Italian  Revival 


of  Sansovino,  they  will  find  arising  in  their 
thought  a respect  for  the  sculptor  and  his 
art,  and  a constantly  increasing  suspicion 
that  the  epoch  was  better  than  they  had 
supposed.  For  that  is  the  curious  thing 
about  the  Italian  Decadenza  as  it  is  about 
other  periods  of  decline — the  charm;  the 
grace,  the  refinement  have  lingered  after 
the  first  impulse  is  spent. 

There  is  still  another  famous  artist  who 
was  the  contemporary  of  Buonarroti  and  of 
Tatti,  that  marvellous  worker  in  bronze  who 
was  called  by  his  own  name  to  the  day  of 
his  death,  violating  all  the  traditions  of 
Tuscan  art  and  artists.  Benvenuto  Cellini 
was  indeed  born  twenty-five  years  later  than 
Michelangelo,  but  he  outlived  him  only 
seven  years,  so  that  while  his  youth  is  con- 
temporaneous with  the  middle  age  of  the 
great  Florentine,  his  work  done  in  France  for 
the  famous  king  of  the  Renaissance,  Francis, 
is  only  just  prolonged  beyond  the  other’s  busy 
life.  And  as  Michelangelo,  the  sculptor, 
was  at  his  best  in  the  design  and  the  adorn- 
ing of  monuments,  his  mightiest  thought 
[111] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

and  most  nearly  faultless  execution  going  to 
the  completion  of  a tomb,  so  Benvenuto  is 
at  his  best  in  a wholly  decorative  bronze, 
something  which  makes  no  pretension  to 
grandeur,  which  is,  indeed,  a development 
and  an  enlargement  of  jeweller-work.  The 
piece  which  travellers  think  of  immediately, 
and  which  most  persons  know  the  best  of 
the  sculpture  of  the  Italian  time,  the 
Perseus  under  the  arches  of  the  Loggia  dei 
Lanzi,  is  also,  especially  if  we  take  it  with 
its  pedestal,  the  most  perfect  expression  of 
this,  the  lifelong  characteristic  of  Cellini. 
The  pedestal  stands  on  a block  let  into  the 
low  parapet,  which  block  on  the  outer  side 
shows  its  whole  depth  and  bears  a very  cu- 
rious and  elaborate  low  relief  in  bronze, 
illustrating  the  famous  adventure  of  Perseus, 
the  rescue  of  Andromeda.  The  pedestal 
itself,  elaborately  wrought  in  marble,  the 
corners  emphasized  by  curious  consoles,  pro- 
vides four  niches  in  which  stand  four 
statuettes  of  entirely  symbolical  meaning. 
The  guide-books  call  them  Juno,  Jupiter, 
and  what  not,  but  it  is  not  in  that  way  that 
[112] 


The  Italian  Revival 

the  student  of  neo-classic  art  reads  either 
their  apparent  significance,  or  their  Latin 
mottoes  borne  by  the  labels  beneath  their 
feet.  As  for  the  principal  group  itself,  the 
Medusa  lies  in  a most  contorted  attitude 
upon  a cushion  whose  presence  puzzles  all 
the  historians,  and  the  body  is  treated' with 
a singular  mixture  of  realism  and  bold 
interpretation,  the  spouting  blood  itself 
wrought  in  the  bronze.  Treading  down  the 
body  of  the  slaughtered  monster  is  Perseus 
holding  up  the  snaky  head,  while  the  great 
sword  of  the  god  fills  his  right  hand  : and 
we  note  that  the  artist  would  not  injure  the 
smooth  disposition  of  the  left  side  of  his 
hero  by  allowing  a scabbard  to  dangle  there 
— at  least  there  is  the  sword-belt,  bearing 
the  only  inscription  which  the  artist  cared 
to  give  to  his  work,  and  ending  in  a mere 
knot  through  which  the  blade  is  assumed  to 
have  been  slipped.  The  marvel  of  it  is 
that  an  artist  accustomed  to  the  most 
minute  and  delicate  work,  and  who  has  filled 
this  monument  so  full  of  detail,  should 
have  cared  so  little  for  great  refinement  of 
[113] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

modelling.  How  did  it  happen  that  the 
statuettes  are  better  things  than  the  large 
statue  ? Why  are  the  limbs  of  Perseus  so 
unintelligently  modelled?  Is  it  really  a 
matter  of  scale — and  could  not  the  practiced 
hand  and  eye  lend  themselves  to  an  in- 
crease in  the  size  of  the  parts  ? Assuredly 
the  smaller  things  which  we  have  of  Cellini 
are  better.  We  should  prefer  to  possess  the 
famous  salt-cellar  of  the  imperial  collection 
at  Vienna,  clumsy  as  are  the  attitudes  of 
the  two  divinities  which  preside  over  it. 


[114] 


CHAPTER  VI 

ITALIAN  DECADENCE FRENCH  TRANSITION 

The  sceptre  was  passing  from  Italy,  and 
the  seventeenth  century,  in  painting,’  was 
for  Velasquez  and  the  Dutchmen.  In 
sculpture  the  whole  of  Europe  was  languid. 
It  was  not  a breakdown  like  that  of  the 
fourth  century,  a collapse  in  technical  skill 
and  in  knowledge ; but  decline  was  every- 
where,— decline  in  taste,  in  energy,  in 
definite  purpose.  And  yet  there  is  one 
very  able  sculptor  who  begins  the  seven- 
teenth century  for  us,  and  another  who 
takes  up  the  work  as  his  predecessor  lays 
it  down.  Giovanni  da  Bologna,  who  died 
very  old  in  1608,  is  followed  by  Lorenzo 
Bernini,  another  of  the  long-lived  artists 
(1598-1680) ; and  these  two  men  have  the 
largest  share  in  carrying  on  the  work 
through  the  Decadenza,  leaving  it  then  to 
France.  There  is  always  a crowd  of  sculp- 
tors around  the  leaders  ; but  it  is  the  need 
[115] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  a brief  enquiry  like  this  to  make  one 
— the  best — man  stand  for  many. 

“John  of  Douay  shall  work  my  plan, 

Mould  me  on  horseback  here  aloft, 

Alive — (the  subtle  artisan)  ! ” 

It  is  in  some  such  words  that  any  Floren- 
tine noble  of  the  second  half  of  the  six- 
teenth century  might  have  spoken  of  that 
strong  Fleming  who  became  an  Italian  in 
his  youth,  and  a Florentine,  in  spite  of  his 
two  geographical  surnames.  This  powerful 
artist  represents  for  us  a definitely  later  epoch 
than  that  over  which  broods  the  vast  in- 
fluence of  Michelangelo  ; but  he  is  not  a 
follower  of  Michelangelo,  not  one  of  the 
crowd  of  imitators  who  tried  to  find  his 
strength  in  his  exaggeration. 

This  artist  is  best  known  to  our  own 
times  by  his  famous  “ Flying  Mercury/’ 
the  statue  in  the  National  Museum  of 
Florence  representing  the  youthful  god 
alighting,  as  it  were,  on  the  point  of  the 
left  foot ; but,  inasmuch  as  his  gaze  is  up- 
ward and  his  gesture  is  emphatically  one  of 
uprising,  and  to  be  so  interpreted— rather 
[116] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

to  be  considered  as  really  in  flight,  only 
bound  by  the  necessities  of  hard  and  heavy 
matter  to  be  propped  on  a support.  The 
true  nature  of  this  support  when  treated  as 
a part  of  the  design  is  evident,  when  we 
consider  the  nature  of  that  mass  of  bronze 
which  it  forms  ; it  is  a head,  as  of  Zephyr, 
breathing  out  wind ; and  as  in  Cellini’s 
statue  the  flowing  blood  of  the  Medusa  was 
rendered  in  bronze,  so  here  the  actual 
presence  of  the  wind  is  given,  and  it  is  that 
and  not  the  physical  and  tangible  thing 
which  is  supposed  to  support  the  wind-borne 
deity.  Still  it  was  not  this  piece  which 
made  famous  that  remarkable  sculptor 
who,  coming  to  Italy  from  the  far  and  un- 
known northwest  of  Europe,  speedily  took 
the  lead  in  that  country  of  slowly  declin- 
ing art.  The  excellent  suggestion  of  Louis 
Gonse  that  had  John  of  Douai  not  steered 
his  bark  towards  Italy  he  would  have  been 
one  of  the  chief  sculptors  of  the  French 
Renaissance,  is  calculated  to  leave  us  with 
a sincere  regret  that  this  great  contem- 
porary of  Germain  Pilon  and  Bartholom6 
[117] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Prieur  should  not  have  been  allowed  by 
Fate  to  aid  in  the  development  of  a new 
and  vigorous  art,  destined  to  flourish  with- 
out serious  decline  for  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  rather  than  to  come  in  almost  at  the 
close  of  the  artistic  epoch  in  Italy.  His 
work,  though,  was  done  in  Italy,  and  as  if 
by  an  Italian ; and  as  such  we  must  take  it. 
There  is  in  Bologna  the  bronze  fountain  in 
the  great  square  ; in  Florence  there  is  the 
fountain  in  the  Boboli  Garden,  the  Rape  of 
the  Sabines  in  the  Loggia  dei  Lanzi,  the 
Hercules  killing  the  centaur  under  the 
same  vaulted  roof ; central  Italy  is  full  of 
his  important  works,  large  and  small,  and 
the  equestrian  statue  alluded  to  in  Brown- 
ing’s poem  (quoted  as  in  the  edition  of 
1855) — that  of  Duke  Ferdinand  in  the 
Square  of  the  Annunziata  in  Florence, 
seems  to  have  assured  his  predominant 
position  among  the  Italian  artists  of  his 
time.  This  work  was  not  put  up  till  1608, 
and  it  is  well  enough  for  the  books  to  say 
that  it  is  not  his  masterpiece,  that  pieces  of 
his  youthful  prime  are  finer  things,  as  in- 
[118] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

deed  it  is  natural  that  they  should  be  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  the  times  were  bad 
and  public  taste  declining.  It  is  still  a 
great  work,  a bold  and  vigorous  piece  of 
bronze,  worthy  to  adorn  the  noblest  city  in 
the  world — for  which,  indeed  from  the  art 
point  of  view,  Florence  may  easily,  be 
taken. 

Plate  XXVIII  is  a view  of  two  of  his 
pieces  as  they  stand  in  Florence  under  the 
arcade  of  the  Loggia  dei  Lanzi.  The  piece 
most  in  evidence  is  the  seizure  of  the  Sabine 
woman,  in  which  there  has  been  found  a 
great  chance  to  contrast  youthful  manhood 
with  vigorous  womanhood  and  with  the 
forms  of  old  age.  The  group  in  the  back- 
ground is  Hercules  or  more  probably  The- 
seus killing  a centaur  ; wrought  by  Bologna 
in  1599,  but  this  group  alone  would  not 
have  made  the  artist  famous.  It  is  curious 
to  note  how  far  he  has  gone  in  his  eager 
desire  to  avoid  axaggeration.  Violent 
muscular  action  is  almost  ignored  in  the 
Hercules — the  very  arm  which  holds  down 
the  head  and  shoulders  of  the  struggling 
[119] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

monster  is  only  in  part  made  rigid  by  the 
effort, — it  is  as  if  it  were  evident  that  a force 
other  than  physical  were  acting  here,  though 
in  defiance  to  sculpturesque  expression. 
This  work,  admired  as  it  is  and  has  been, 
is  a production  of  the  man’s  old  age.  But 
the  Sabine  is  of  1582  when  Bologna  was  still 
short  of  sixty ; a good  age  for  the  master- 
piece of  a vigorous  man  ; and  artists  are  al- 
ways a long-lived  race.  It  is  a noble  group  : 
and  in  one  respect  among  the  most  remark- 
able works  of  European  sculpture, — in  the 
faultless  lines  and  masses  as  shown  in  all 
the  hundred  points  of  view  which  its  out- 
of-door  situation  allows. 

Plate  XXIX  presents  the  work  of  Gio- 
vanni Lorenzo  Bernini  (1598-1680)  the 
famous  architect  who  was  brought  from 
Italy  by  Louis  XIV  and  set  to  work  on  a 
design  for  a Louvre  of  Italian  majesty. 
The  scheme  failed,  the  design  was  not  ac- 
cepted, the  famous  artist  at  whose  feet  lay 
the  art  of  Italy  had  to  relinquish  his  hold 
upon  France,  in  which  land  he  left  merely 
that  portrait  statue  of  the  great  King  Louis 
[120] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

which  was  destined  to  disappear  in  the 
tempests  of  the  Revolution.  In  Italy  Ber- 
nini is  known  also  as  an  architect,  and  it 
may  well  be  that  his  huge  colonnades  were 
even  during  his  lifetime  admired  by  more 
persons  than  could  be  expected  to  enjoy  his 
sculpture.  Fully  as  much  as  in  the  case  of 
Sansovino,  fully  as  much  as  with  the  earlier 
men,  the  sculptors  of  the  true  Risorgimento, 
did  Bernini  conceive  of  sculpture  as  his 
own,  his  personal  work,  and  his  architecture 
as  in  a way  the  secondary  achievement 
which  every  powerful  and  original  artist  of 
the  time  had  need  to  undertake. 

The  statue  of  the  prophet  Daniel,  which 
is  shown  in  the  plate,  is  as  perfect  a piece  of 
modelling  and  as  simple  a piece  of  thought 
as  his  work  affords.  There  is  certainly 
nothing  in  it  of  that  pomposity  of  which 
we  accuse  his  vast  architectural  composi- 
tions ; and  with  a work  as  dignified  as  this 
and  as  truly  fitted  to  its  purpose  of  adorn- 
ing a chapel  in  a great  church  of  Rome  it 
is  safe  to  leave,  for  the  present,  the  study 
of  the  artists  of  Italy  and  to  approach 
[121] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

our  last  group  of  sculptors  of  old  times — 
of  those  who  still  worked  and  flourished 
before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution  in 
1789.  The  eighteenth  century  is  a much 
abused  epoch,  but  there  is  noble  art  in  it 
still,  and  France  has  had  the  secret  known 
only  to  her,  of  preserving  for  her  artists  an 
energy  of  their  own  in  the  days  of  decline, 
out  of  which  comes  progress  again  at  the 
earliest  moment. 

In  the  fourth  chapter  the  French  sculptors 
of  the  transition  were  considered  very 
briefly ; and  then  the  subject  led  us  to  v 
Italy,  because  it  was  in  Italy  that  the 
Greco-Roman  feeling  arose  and  grew  strong 
— that  feeling  which  was  to  dominate  all 
Europe,  from  the  time  of  its  conquest  of  the 
north  early  in  the  sixteenth  century.  We 
have  not  been  able  to  speak  of  the  con- 
temporaries in  France  of  the  great  Italians, 
Michelangelo,  Sansovino,  Ammanati,  Cel- 
lini, and  John  of  Bologna  ; but  the  men 
among  them  whom  history  knows  best, 
Germain  Pilon  and  Bartholome  Prieur, 
each  dying  about  1590,  would  be  of  equal 
[122] 


Plate  XXIX. STATUE  OF  DANIEL  THE  PROPHET,  BY  LORENZO  BERNINI,  IN 

THE  CHIGI  CHAPEL,  CHURCH  OF  S.  MARIA  DEL  POPOLO,  ROME. 


Plate  XXX. — tomb  or  cardinal  mazarin,  by  coysevox:  formerly  in  cha- 
pel OF  COLLEGE  DES  QUATRES  NATIONS  (NOW  MEETING  ROOM  OF  THE  IN- 
STITUT  DE  FRANCE).  THE  TOMB  IS  NOW  IN  THE  LOUVRE  MUSEUM. 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

importance  with  the  contemporary  Italians 
except  in  this — that  the  future  was  not 
with  them.  The  future  was  not  with  the  evo- 
lution of  mediaeval  art ; it  was  with  the  study 
of  neo-classic  art  and  what  that  art  might 
bring  with  it,  and  this  was  thoroughly  es- 
tablished in  France  in  the  hands  of  Coysevox 
(1640-1720).  But  unfortunately  for  the 
art  of  that  immediate  epoch  in  the  North, 
the  contemporary  work  in  Italy  had  al- 
ready gone  through  a long  period  of  devel- 
opment and  decline,  which  double  move- 
ment had  occupied  two  centuries  and  a half 
before  Coysevox  was  of  age  to  do  serious 
work.  Because  of  this  late  coming  of  the 
Frenchman  as  of  the  other  classically 
minded  sculptors  of  the  North,  the  style 
taken  up  by  them  was  a bastard  one  : noth- 
ing else  was  possible,  at  first,  while  Italy 
offered  no  stimulus.  It  was  vulgar  in  a 
way  ; but  there  is  nothing  more  interesting, 
were  there  time  to  follow  it  up,  than  to 
trace  the  struggle  of  the  more  serious  artists 
of  France  with  the  Italian  importations, 
which  they  felt  to  be  inferior  in  intelli- 
[123] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

gence,  affected  and  trivial  in  sentiment. 
We  shall  see  in  the  work  of  a still  later 
master  a still  greater  triumph  over  this 
tendency  to  triviality  which  marked  the 
later  Italian  school.  But  in  Coysevox  the 
two  tendencies  struggle  with  one  another. 
They  contend  for  the  mastery  in  a way  so 
visible  and  pronounced  that  no  one  can  fail 
to  see  in  the  tomb  of  Cardinal  Mazarin 
(Plate  XXX)  both  the  architectonic  knowl- 
edge of  the  Italian  school  and  its  infirmity 
of  purpose.  Those  figures  which  accom- 
pany the  tomb  are  not  satisfactory,  they  are 
not  sympathetic,  they  are  neither  noble  nor 
graceful  if  we  are  setting  up  a high  standard 
for  nobility  and  grace.  As  compared  with 
the  statues  of  Sansovino  (Plate  XXVII), 
these  figures  are  lacking  in  dignity  ; as  com- 
pared with  those  of  Bologna  (Plate  XXVIII) 
they  are  lacking  in  force  ; and  yet  there  is 
evidently  a grasp  of  the  subject,  a power  of 
modelling  the  figure  in  any  attitude  without 
violence  as  without  feebleness ; and  in  the 
portrait  statue  kneeling  above,  there  is 
equally  admirable  work  in  a technical  way, 
[124] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

with  what  is  admitted  to  be  immense  merit 
in  artistical  portraiture  in  a dignified  form. 
Coysevox  left  behind  him  an  enormous  mass 
of  work  ; he  was  one  of  the  most  diligent 
artists  and  at  the  same  time  one  of  the 
most  even,  for  there  is  little  of  his  great 
series  which  is  unworthy  of  the  rest — which 
can  in  any  way  be  said  to  lower  his  general 
standard.  He  is  best  known,  undoubtedly, 
by  his  portraits,  by  such  extraordinary 
pieces  as  the  bronze  bust  of  Conde  in  the 
Louvre,  a bust  which  has  evidently  served 
as  a guide  to  a later  artist,  as  shown  in 
Plate  XL. 

We  are  compelled  to  take  Coysevox  as 
the  representative  of  a great  many  artists 
who  were  nearly  contemporary  with  him, 
Nicolas  and  Guillaume  Coustou,  Pierre  Le 
Gros,  Martin  Desjardins,  all  Frenchmen — 
and  Andreas  Schlutter  of  Germany  ; but 
indeed  it  was  a slack  time  in  sculpture,  the 
seventeenth  century.  In  the  century  that 
followed  they  called  it  with  pride  le  grand 
sibcle ; but  that  was  a political  phrase, 
coined  in  honor  of  le  grand  roi , Louis 
[125] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

XIV,  and  the  political  and  military 
changes  of  that  time.  Nobody  whose 
life  was  mainly  devoted  to  the  inter- 
ests of  the  spirit  would  have  called  the 
seventeenth  century  a “ great  ” one ; in 
spite  of  the  painters  mentioned  above 
(see  Page  115) ; in  spite  of  Milton,  in  spite 
of  Moliere.  Neither  in  literature  nor  in 
art  was  it  a time  of  lofty  aims  or  of  great 
achievement,  except  in  a few  lofty  souls. 
The  struggle  for  the  new  world  and  the 
settlement  of  it  by  Protestants  in  the 
North  and  by  Roman  Catholics  in  the 
South  : the  frightful  Thirty  Years’  War 
with  all  that  it  involved  : the  struggle  be- 
tween Puritanism  and  the  old  loyalty  to 
the  Church  of  England  : the  repeated 

efforts  of  northern  Europe  with  such  allies 
as  it  could  find  to  check  the  ambitions  of 
Louis  XIV  : the  struggle  of  the  Spanish 
succession  and  that  connected  with  the 
English  monarchy  when  William  of 
Orange  was  enthroned : these  are  the 

matters  which  the  words  “ The  Seventeenth 
Century  ” call  to  mind.  Artistically  the 
[12G] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

one  thing  of  great  and  lasting  importance 
is  the  growth  of  the  northern  post- 
Renaissance  style  in  its  many  varied 
forms,  but  this  is  almost  entirely  an  archi- 
tectural development,  nor  did  it  help 
sculpture  to  be  great  and  glorious  during 
that  one  hundred  years. 

With  the  eighteenth  century  there  is  in 
a way  a change  for  the  better.  Archi- 
tecture had  indeed  grown  feebler : there  is 
still  dignity  and  stateliness  and  a world  of 
magnificence,  royal  in  its  scale  and  in  its 
grandiose  character ; but  of  intense  and 
absorbing  interest  there  is  none.  Painting 
is,  in  its  turn,  inferior  in  its  attractiveness 
to  sculpture  throughout  this  period. 

Among  the  men  who  made  sculpture 
what  it  was  in  the  eighteenth  century  there 
is  none  of  greater  prominence  than  Jean 
Baptiste  Pigalle  (1714-1785).  Contem- 
porary with  him  were  the  youngest 
Coustou,  Jean  Baptiste  Le  Moyne,  Falconet, 
Pajou,  Claude  Michel — whom  they  call 
Clodion — Bouchardon  and  Tassaert ; and 
Houdon’s  youth  is  contemporaneous  with 
[127] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  maturity  and  age  of  Pigalle.  It  is 
curious  that  the  epoch  which  we  associate 
with  triviality  and  elegant  nonsense,  the 
reign  of  Louis  XV,  following  that  almost 
legendary  epoch  which  we  call  the  Regency, 
should  tell  more  decidedly  in  sculpture 
than  in  the  more  gentle  and  graceful  and 
dainty  art  of  the  painter  ; but  the  best  that 
the  painters  of  the  day  have  to  show  us  is 
after  all  the  work  of  Boucher  and  Chardin, 
and  how  slight  and  weak  is  that,  in  com- 
parison with  the  sculpture  of  the  men 
whose  names  are  given  above ! 

Of  Pigalle  the  most  renowned  work  is 
certainly  that  Mercury  attaching  his 
Sandal,  which  is  preserved  in  the  collec- 
tion of  Frederick  the  Great  in  Potsdam, 
while  a replica  of  the  figure  is  in  the 
Louvre.  If  it  is  not  chosen  alone  for  re- 
production here,  that  is  merely  because  of 
its  wide  celebrity,  and  because  the  other 
statue  given  in  Plate  XXXI  is  certainly, 
as  a piece  of  pure  sculpture,  as  attractive  as 
the  Mercury  itself.  This  statue,  called  De- 
spair (Le  Desespoir),  is  by  J.  J.  Perraud,  a 
[128] 


Plate  XXXI. — STATUE  OF  MERCURY  FASTENING  HIS  SANDAL,  BY  J.  B.  PIGALLE  : STATUE  CALLED  DESPAIR, 

BY  J.  j.  perraud:  both  in  louvre  museum. 


Plate  XXXII. — STATUE  OF  PHILOPOEMEN,  BY  DAVID  d’ ANGERS:  STATUE  OF  DIANA,  BY  HOUDONI  BOTH  IN 
LOUVRE  MUSEUM. 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

man  of  the  nineteenth  century  ; and  it  is 
interesting  to  see  the  very  similar  treatment 
of  a similar  theme  by  men  living  half  a 
century  apart.  The  faultless  straightfor- 
wardness and  simplicity  of  the  modelling, 
the  clear  and  dextrous  execution  as  if  all 
masterhood  had  come  easily  to  Pigalle,  and 
the  academic  fidelity  of  the  later  epoch,  are 
shown  in  these  not  very  large  nor  very 
elaborate  works  in  an  almost  perfect 
fashion.  The  bad  taste  of  the  times,  the 
excesses,  the  fantastical  forms,  are  kept 
away  from  each  piece,  are  pushed  one  side, 
as  it  were,  to  allow  the  tranquil  artist  to 
pursue  his  work  without  reference  to  the 
more  trivial  fashions  of  the  day. 

This  same  Pigalle  was  capable  of  the 
quaintness  and  the  whims  of  the  monument 
erected  in  Strasbourg  to  the  Marshal  Saxe, 
and  that  indeed,  is  a conglomeration  of 
lions  and  eagles  in  distress,  with  the  Genius 
of  France  warding  off  the  attack  of  Death, 
and  History  and  Wisdom  weeping  at  the 
foot  of  the  coffin,  while  floating  banners 
combine  with  the  bier-cloth  to  give  to  the 
[129] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

huge  composite  mass  that  effect  of  abundant 
drapery  which  the  taste  of  the  times  de- 
manded. In  such  a work  as  that  the  clear 
intelligence  of  the  sculptor,  considered  as  a 
sculptor,  shines  through  the  real  vulgaritjr 
of  the  crude  composition,  impossible  for 
any  one  to  organize  aright.  The  man  is  still 
a sculptor,  but  neither  he  nor  any  one  else 
could  preserve  an  architectonic  disposition 
in  such  a bewildering  mass  of  incongruous 
thought. 

To  other  artists  of  the  time  the  fanciful 
composition  was  familiar,  but  the  sculptur- 
esque power  was  wanting.  It  must  be  held 
a glory  of  the  nineteenth  century  that  its 
second  half  sought  a real  revival  of  the 
sculptor's  art.  To  deal  with  this  is  the  sub- 
ject of  the  following  chapters,  and  it  appears 
in  them  that  the  art  in  the  years  following 
1850  is  to  be  compared  without  fear  to  the 
work  of  all  ages  since  the  great  epoch  of  the 
Greeks,  and  to  be  compared  even  to  that 
for  our  guidance  in  the  true  judgment  of 
art. 

The  sculptors  whose  great  fame  fills  up 
[130] 


Italian  Decadence — French  Transition 

the  gap  which  otherwise  would  be  caused 
by  the  revolutionary  struggle,  Houdon  and 
David,  are  still  to  be  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  the  last  years  of  the  old  world. 
Jean  Antoine  Houdon  (1740-1828)  worked 
in  France,  where  his  portrait  statues  consti- 
tute an  epoch  by  themselves — for  that  ex- 
traordinary embodiment  of  despotism,  Cath- 
erine of  Russia,  and  for  the  state  of  Virginia 
for  which  he  made  the  most  important 
statue  of  Washington.  In  France  this  great 
sculptor  is  best  known  by  the  statue  of  Vol- 
taire in  the  possession  of  the  Theatre  Fran- 
gais.  But  if  one  were  to  desire  an  excellent 
school  of  art  for  young  sculptors  seeking  for 
strictness  and  reserve  combined  with  energy, 
he  would  do  well  to  gather  delicately  made 
casts  of  Houdon ’s  draped  statues  and  busts. 
The  undraped  Diana  shown  in  Plate  XXXII 
was  rejected  by  the  jury  of  the  Salon  of 
1781  because,  as  it  appears,  that  particular 
goddess  should  not  be  represented  in  a nude 
statue.  What  would  the  critics  of  that  day 
have  said  to  the  nude  Dianas  of  our  own 
time?  Half  a dozen  of  them  are  based 
[131] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

upon  this  work  of  Houdon  in  their  very 
inception. 

Pierre- Jean-David,  whom  we  call  from 
his  birthplace  David  d’  Angers  (1789-1856) 
would  be  a modern  but  that  he  holds  to  the 
manner  of  an  earlier  age.  David  was  al- 
most alone  in  the  artistic  world.  Sur- 
rounded by  patriotic  Frenchmen  who  found 
in  him  the  one  man  of  force  and  of  char- 
acter who  was  still  devoted  to  fine  art,  his 
work  was  praised  beyond  its  true  value,  and 
for  the  last  thirty  years  of  his  life  he  was 
overwhelmed  with  work — forced  beyond  his 
strength,  compelled  to  undertake  what  was 
not  within  his  scope.  And  yet  the  ideal 
statue,  Philopoemen,  shown  in  Plate  XXXII 
partly  explains  the  excessive  admiration 
which  a non-artistic  quarter-century  had 
for  its  most  powerful  artist. 


[132] 


CHAPTER  VII 

RECENT  ART,  PART  I,  FORM 

Sculpture  in  the  twentieth  century  is  in 
a position  very  different  from  that  of  archi- 
tecture. In  a former  hand-book  of  this 
series  it  was  necessary  to  point  out  the  gen- 
eral truth  of  the  proposition  that  architec- 
ture as  a fine  art  was  non-existent,  the  pur- 
pose of  each  artist  being  (in  almost  every 
case)  to  revive  some  bygone  thought,  some 
half-forgotten  scheme,  and  to  make  these 
thoughts  and  schemes  do  duty  afresh  and 
under  new  conditions.  In  sculpture  this 
has  never  been  the  case.  There  have  been 
times  when  sculpture  was  almost  non-ex- 
istent. Such  a time  was  after  the  establish- 
ment of  Christianity,  after  the  destruction 
of  the  Roman  world.  There  have  been 
times  when  sculpture  was  feeble  and  in  a 
way  trivial.  Such  a time  was  the  second 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  the 
beginning  of  the  eighteenth,  when  the 
sculptor  seemed  to  have  very  little  to  say. 

[133] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

There  have  been  times  when  bad  taste 
ruled ; or  if  not  bad  taste,  then  a certain 
inadequacy  of  critical  faculty,  as  if  vigor 
had  been  eliminated  from  the  world  of  fine 
art  and  no  intelligence  was  left  to  tell  the 
executant  how  very  slovenly  were  the  re- 
sults of  his  labor.  Such  a time  existed 
during  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, after  the  brief  reign  of  Houdon  was 
over  and  before  the  coming  of  the  recent 
development  of  sculpture  in  France — the 
days  of  the  worship  of  Canova,  when  his 
feebler  characteristics  were  copied  and  his 
feeling  for  classical  art  misunderstood ; with 
the  result  that  the  modelling  of  Vasse, 
Julien,  Duret,  Lemaire,  and  Simart  carried 
it  over  the  earlier  achievements  of  David 
d’Angers  and  Rude  : and  that  the  art  of 
Hiram  Powers  obtained  an  European  rank. 
Such  times  of  languor  there  have  been,  but 
never  has  there  been  a time  when  sculpture 
was  conscious  re-study  of  the  past.  The 
pupil  has  studied  the  antique,  the  mature 
sculptor  has  studied  it  all  the  harder  and 
has  joined  thereto  some  investigation  into 
[134] 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

the  picturesque  achievements  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  the  gentle  grace  of  the  Italian 
fifteenth  century.  But  never  has  the  work 
of  sculpture  been  a conscious  and  even  an 
avowed  remaking  of  what  has  once  been 
successfully  and  triumphantly  made.  Ap- 
parent exceptions  to  the  truth  of  this  state- 
ment are  found  in  the  sculpture  of  the 
earliest  Italian  students  of  antiquity— but 
they  had  Christian  and  ecclesiastical  sub- 
jects to  treat  and  churches  and  church 
fittings  to  adorn  and  therefore  would  not 
have  done  what  the  Greco-Roman  sculptors 
did,  even  had  they  been  so  skilled  as  to 
achieve  it.  The  Gothic  revivalists  in  Eng- 
land after  1850  often  copied  closely  the 
mediaeval  style  of  English  statues  on  church 
fronts  but  their  practice  did  not  influence 
the  world  of  sculptors.  One  living  artist 
and  another  has  tried  to  model  a statue 
exactly  on  the  lines  laid  down  for  him  by 
his  ancient  Greek  predecessor,  but  this  has 
been  recognized  at  once  as  a piece  of  study 
— either  the  preparation  of  a beginner  or 
the  pleasant  experiment  of  the  made  artist. 

[135] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Sculpture  has  never  been  what  the  fine  art 
of  architecture  has  been  since  1815  in  all 
the  lands  of  western  civilization. 

The  reason  for  this  difference  between 
the  arts  is  not  far  to  seek.  The  art  which 
is  based  upon  constant  study  of  nature  has 
nature  to  revive  it  continually.  This  is  the 
art  which  we  call  the  art  of  representation 
and  of  expression  ; and  such  an  art  sends 
its  pupils  at  once  to  the  great  school  where 
they  learn  afresh  what  they  need  most  to 
know.  They  look  about  them,  they  look 
intently  at  this  and  that ; they  learn  to 
look  profoundly  and  with  the  eyes  of  the 
spirit  at  that  which  is  most  important  to 
their  task,  and  they  become  artists.  In  the 
decorative  arts,  however,  there  is  no  such 
opportunity.  It  is  not  in  the  study  of 
nature,  external,  visible,  tangible  nature, 
that  one  learns  how  to  build  wisely  and  in 
a comely  fashion,  and  how  to  adorn  his 
building.  The  traditions  once  broken,  can- 
not, as  it  seems,  be  renewed.  The  maxims 
formerly  accepted  and  now  forgotten,  can- 
not, it  appears,  be  rediscovered  or  replaced. 

[136] 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 


The  only  decoration  which  the  twentieth 
century  seems  to  have  within  its  grasp  is 
that  of  the  immediate  application  to  the 
thing  to  be  adorned  of  parts  of  its  stock  of 
material  gained  from  the  study  of  nature  ; 
of  thoughts  directly  arising  during  such 
study  of  nature.  It  has  learned  to  record, 
and  to  select  from  the  great  stock  of  natural 
objects,  forms,  colors  and  combinations.  It 
tries  in  a hesitating  way  to  apply  some  of 
this  to  the  vase  or  the  tray  : but  it  cannot 
design  a vase  or  a tray. 

Our  present  business,  then,  is  with  the 
encouraging  study  rather  than  with  the  un- 
promising one.  And  we  will  divide  the 
examination  of  the  sculpture  of  our  time  as 
follows  : — 

First,  sculpture  of  pure  form,  such  as  seems 
to  be  undertaken  with  constant  thought  of 
Greco-Roman  work. 

Second,  sculpture  of  sentiment,  a thing 
almost  unknown  to  the  great  past,  and 
therefore  of  peculiar  importance  to  the 
modern  world  in  the  cases  where  it  remains 
sculpturesque. 


[137] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

Third,  sculpture  used  for  immediate 
decorative  purpose,  a thing  made  difficult 
by  the  feebleness  of  the  fine  art  of  archi- 
tecture, but  resulting  in  a few  cases  in  in- 
teresting and  even  promising  works  of  art. 

There  are,  of  course,  many  examples 
which  partake  of  two  or  more  of  these  three 
characteristics.  Thus,  there  is  many  a group 
which  belongs  at  once  to  the  second  and  to 
the  third  category.  Again  there  are  cases 
which  leave  one  in  doubt ; for  is  it  not  evi- 
dent that  the  statue  first  hereafter  men- 
tioned might  be  treated  equally  well  under 
the  first  and  under  the  second  head  ? 

That  statue,  to  which  the  first  place  is 
given,  not  at  all  because  of  any  supreme 
excellence  (good  as  it  is),  is  that  by  Alfred 
Boucher,  A la  Terre  (Plate  XXXIII).  The 
reader  will  probably  note  at  once  that  this 
statue  is  not  classical  in  its  proportions  or  in 
the  treatment  of  its  details.  It  is  a realistic 
study  ; but  it  is  a study  of  form  alone.  It 
is  so  far  from  being  classical  in  spirit  that 
one  might  say  without  much  fear  of  contra- 
diction that  no  Greek  or  Greco-Roman 
[ 138] 


Plate  XXXIII. — statue,  a la  terre;  by  Alfred  boucher  (b.  1850). 


Plate  XXXIV. — statue  by  chas.  h.  niehaus  (b.  1855),  decorating  the 

DRAKE  MONUMENT  AT  TITUSVILLE,  PENNA. 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

artist  whose  work  we  possess  would  have 
dreamed  of  producing  anything  so  minutely 
studied  from  nature  in  all  its  parts.  The 
famous  Farnese  Hercules  in  the  British 
Museum  is  a study  of  the  exaggerated 
muscles  which  might  be  supposed  to  give 
the  physical  explanation  of  the  godlike 
force  of  the  Greek  hero  Herakles,  or  of  the 
Roman  caricature  of  him  called  Hercules  : 
but  we  all  detest  that  statue,  nor  would  any 
modern  writer  dream  of  pointing  to  it  as  an 
example  of  anything  that  is  worthy  of  our 
study  in  what  remains  of  the  past.  The 
student  may,  if  he  likes,  turn  from  this 
statue  of  the  digger  also,  but  he  should  first 
note  that  there  is  here  no  attempt  to  render 
anything  preterhuman  in  the  size  or  the 
disposition  of  the  muscles.  In  fact  the 
starting  of  the  veins  to  the  surface  is  ex- 
pressive rather  of  human  weakness  ; for  al- 
though it  is  good  “ to  have  the  circulation 
near  the  surface  ” both  for  horse  and  for 
man,  yet  the  high  relief  of  the  swollen  veins 
is  a confession  that  the  powers  are  being 
strained  beyond  their  normal  endurance. 

[139] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

It  is  a faithful  study  of  how  a powerful  man 
uses  his  power,  the  visible  results  of  a great 
and  long-continued  strain  being  shown  in 
the  whole  body  and  all  the  limbs ; for  that 
is  precisely  the  end  proposed — that  the  ac- 
tion of  all  the  important  muscles  together  is 
necessary  for  such  an  effort.  The  student 
will  then  consider  whether  these  manifesta- 
tions are  truthful  in  a high  sense  as  express- 
ing forcibly  the  way  in  which  the  limbs  and 
the  trunk  portray  the  effort  which  they  are 
called  upon  to  make  ; and  also  whether  such 
conventions  as  are  used,  are  used  to  the  best 
advantage ; and  again  whether  it  has  been 
conventionalized  enough.  Is  there  or  is 
there  not  an  undue  insistence  upon  the  hol- 
lowing of  the  soft  part  behind  the  collar- 
bone, and  the  pulling  of  the  muscles  at 
their  points  of  adhesion  to  the  breast-bone  ? 
Would  it  or  would  it  not  be  better  to  retain 
some  of  that  Greek  reserve  which  never 
allowed  the  over-complete  expression  of 
violent  exertion,  which  expression  may 
easily  be  ugly  ? 

It  may  be  well  to  compare  with  this  an  im- 
[140] 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

portant  American  conception,  The  Driller, 
by  Charles  Niehaus  (see  Plate  XXXIV),  a 
statue  intended  to  adorn  a tomb,  and  sug- 
gestive of  that  well-sinking  for  mineral  oil 
of  which  we  think  so  much.  The  work- 
man is,  except  in  his  nudity,  the  workman 
of  every  day,  intensely  occupied  with  what 
is,  after  all,  an  every-day  piece  of  work. 
This  is  indeed  a frank  attempt  to  study  the 
pure  art  of  the  figure  under  the  conditions 
of  contemporary  life.  The  modern  man 
studied  without  drapery,  is  not  a Spear 
Bearer  (Doryphoros),  nor  an  idealized  por- 
trait to  be  set  upon  a tomb,  nor  yet  is  he 
deified.  The  question  comes  up  at  once 
whether  it  is  profitable  to  produce  a pa- 
tiently wrought  study  from  life  of  the  nude 
figure  engaged  in  any  conceivable  occu- 
pation of  our  own  time.  In  The  Hewer 
by  Mr.  George  Gray  Barnard  the  same 
thought  is  expressed,  the  same  effort  has 
been  made  ; and  these  two  American  stat- 
ues may  well  be  compared  each  with  the 
other  or  with  the  Greek  figures  of  kindred 
import  shown  in  this  book,  or  to  be  seen 
[141] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

elsewhere,  that  we  may  note  the  difference 
of  conception  between  the  Greek  and  the 
modern  man.  Thus  it  would  not  take 
long  for  most  students  to  ascertain  that 
there  is  much  more  of  the  classical  feeling 
in  The  Driller  than  there  is  in  The  Hewer. 
Most  persons  looking  at  the  two  statues  or 
at  any  two  photographs  of  them,  will  feel 
an  immense  superiority  in  artistic  charm  of 
the  first  named,  which  is  also  the  earlier 
produced  of  the  two.  Whether  or  not  it 
was  proposed  by  the  sculptor  of  the  Hewer 
to  express  a less  perfected  form  of  the  body 
of  man,  it  will  be  felt  by  most  persons 
that  there  is  something  of  that  character 
about  it.  It  is  in  a way  formless  ; the  dig- 
nity of  sculpture  seems  not  to  have  been 
given  to  it.  In  the  Niehaus  statue,  how- 
ever, there  is  much  dignity,  and  one  is  re- 
minded of  a more  entirely  classical  compo- 
sition, that  figure  which  was  exhibited  in 
the  first  show  of  the  National  Sculpture 
Society  and  which  then  reminded  us  of  The 
Scraper  (Apoxyomenos)  of  the  Vatican, 
though  that  was,  as  it  seemed,  a conscious 
[142] 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

study  of  antiquity  and  this  is  merely  a 
study  from  life  carried  out  in  the  spirit  of 
one  who  loves  antiquity. 

Such  another  work  of  art  is  The  Racers, 
also  by  Boucher  (see  Plate  XXXV).  This 
work,  of  which  the  proper  name  is  Au  But 
— “ At  the  Goal,”  is  again  non-classical  in 
its  treatment,  and  essentially  so  in  the  types 
of  forms,  which  have  nothing  of  the  grace 
and  little  of  the  non-intellectual  character 
of  the  Greek  statue  of  The  Athlete,  properly 
so  called.  We  will  consider  this  group  in 
the  present  section  under  the  first  heading, 
merely,  because  it  is  a study  of  the  nude 
form  alone,  without  even  the  remotest  con- 
sideration of  sentiment  (for  the  eagerness  to 
win  is  not  a sentiment  at  all,  but  a part  of 
that  brutality  which  nature  uses  to  keep 
her  physical  forms  in  energetic  life).  The 
criticism  easy  to  pass  upon  it  is  that  these 
men  are  not  in  the  attitude  of  the  chosen, 
the  accepted,  the  representative,  competitors 
of  the  race  track.  They  are  not  in  posi- 
tion— let  that  position  be  what  you  will. 
The  answer  is,  of  course,  first,  they  are  not 
[143] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

now  in  the  regular  form  of  the  race — they 
are  instantly,  approaching  the  goal  and 
each  hopes  to  be  the  first  to  lay  his  hand 
upon  it.  But  again  the  real  and  sufficient 
answer  is  that  the  sculptor  did  not  promise 
to  his  audience  a study  of  “ good  form  ” in 
athletics.  He  has  promised  and  he  offers  a 
sincere  study  of  the  comely  bodies  of  young 
men  in  most  violent  exertion  in  the  way 
of  rapid  movement,  different  at  once,  and  a 
contrast  to  the  stillness  of  the  digger  in  the 
ground  (Plate  XXXIII). 

Let  us  consider  now  (Plate  XXXVI)  one 
of  the  great  achievements  of  Auguste  Rodin ; 
the  statuette  called  la  Danaide,  one  of  the 
daughters  of  Danaos.  This  work  is  one  of 
the  most  marvellous  productions  of  the 
greatest  modern  student  of  the  human 
form.  The  attempt  is  twofold.  There  is 
first  the  deliberate  choice  of  a pose  which 
shall  allow  of  the  least  available  detach- 
ment from  the  block  of  marble  ; and  second, 
a posture  extremely  difficult  to  model 
aright,  and  affording  a most  excellent  op- 
portunity to  enlarge  and  to  display  the 
[144] 


Plate  XXXV. — group,  au  but;  by  Alfred  boucher  (b.  1850), 


Plate  XXXVI. — small  statue,  une  danaide;  by  auguste  rodin  (b.  1840). 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

artist’s  profound  knowledge  of  the  external 
characteristics  of  humanity.  It  cannot  be 
thought  that  any  sentiment  is  purposely 
expressed.  We  assume,  of  course,  that  a 
Danaide  is  a young  woman  in  distress, 
whether  we  take  her  to  be  a bride  with 
orders  which  she  dares  not  disobey,  to  mur- 
der her  new-wedded  husband,  or  a sufferer  in 
Hades  undergoing  a ceaseless  punishment 
for  a crime  committed  on  earth.  In  any 
case  the  Danaide,  like  the  Foolish  Virgin 
of  Christian  legend,  is  assumed  to  be  a 
young  woman  in  deep  distress.  This  was 
the  reason,  perhaps,  why  the  figure  is  called 
by  this  name  ; but  it  cannot  be  thought 
that  the  attempt  to  express  any  profound 
suffering  was  present  in  the  artist’s  mind. 
So  in  the  interesting  pair  of  busts  by  Guil- 
laume, called  The  Gracchi  (Plate  XXXVII) 
we  are  not  to  suppose  that  the  sculptor  was 
in  any  very  special  way  an  admirer  of  those 
would-be  reformers  of  the  decaying  repub- 
lic ; he  was  impressed  with  the  charm  of 
those  monuments  found  on  the  Campagna 
of  Rome,  on  which  the  half-figures  of  hus- 
[145] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

band  and  wife  are  set  side  by  side  and  com- 
bined into  a group  by  touch  or  gesture ; 
and  he  thought  of  the  similar  and  yet  con- 
trasted pair  of  busts  expressing  in  attitude 
the  common  life  of  two  young  men,  broth- 
ers and  fellow  patriots.  The  document  upon 
which  they  lay  each  his  right  hand  is  a 
mere  “ property  ” ; it  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  sculpture  considered  as  a work  of 
art,  but  only  with  the  little  affectation  of 
the  Roman  name  of  the  group.  You  are 
reminded  by  this  paper  of  the  struggle 
made  by  the  brothers  Gracchus  to  restore 
or  reform  the  commonwealth  : but  this  is 
of  so  little  importance  that  a person  who 
had  never  heard  of  those  two  episodes  in 
Roman  history  might  easily  find  exactly 
as  much  pleasure  in  the  group  as  a Roman- 
izing republican  of  the  time  of  the  French 
Revolution.  What  is  important  is  the 
casting  of  the  drapery,  a study  of  what  is 
taken  conventionally  as  Roman  rather  than 
Grecian  distribution  of  folds,  and  suggest- 
ing but  in  part  the  actual  tunica  and  toga. 
In  other  ways,  as  in  the  close-cropped  hair, 
[146] 


Plate  XXXVII. — half-length  group,  the  gracchi;  by  j.  b.  c.  e.  guillaume  (b.  18: 


Plate  XXXVIII. — group  of  lions,  by  a.  n.  cain  (b.  1822). 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

the  shaven  face  and  the  general  type  of 
man,  either  head  and  bust  is  Roman 
enough  for  the  purpose,  but  not  so  delib- 
erately classical  that  its  essential  character 
as  a piece  of  independent  sculpture  is  at  all 
disguised. 

It  is  much  easier,  in  connection  with 
works  such  as  these  which  we  have  just 
now  dealt  with  (Plates  XXXIII  to  XXXVII 
inclusive)  to  understand  the  true  spirit  of 
every  sculptor  who  is  worthy  of  his  place 
in  the  fraternity.  The  question  for  the 
sculptor  himself  is  not  how  he  is  to  express 
a certain  epoch,  a certain  race  of  men,  a 
certain  incident,  a certain  sentiment — not 
so  much  these  or  any  one  of  them,  as  How 
to  produce  a beautiful  work  of  art.  What- 
ever the  historical,  or  associated,  or  ethno- 
logical thought  in  the  sculptor’s  mind  may 
have  been,  it  disappears  when  the  work  is 
in  hand,  leaving  nothing  to  occupy  the 
artist’s  thought  except  the  production  of  a 
noble  work  of  art.  If  it  be  not  so — if  eth- 
nology, or  history,  or  religious  enthusiasm, 
or  patriotic  excitement  sway  him  too  far, 
[147] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  work  of  art  is  certain  to  suffer  by  the 
substitution  of  the  foreign  set  of  thoughts, 
for  those  which  appertain  to  sculpture  alone. 

It  is,  as  has  been  said,  more  easy  to  judge 
of  the  sculptor’s  own  work  when  there  is 
the  simplest,  even  the  barest  set  of  thoughts 
of  non-artistic  character.  Let  us  consider, 
then,  the  strange  phenomenon  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  appearance  of  beast 
sculpture  and  bird  sculpture  as  the  principal 
subjects  for  really  monumental  works  of 
art.  Art  has  always  known  the  beast  of 
chase  and  the  beast  of  prey  as  a part  of 
human  sculpture.  The  herdsman  needs 
his  oxen,  the  hunter  his  stags  and  all  the 
rest  of  it,  but  rarely  has  it  been  the  case 
that  sculpture  has  dealt  with  the  bull,  the 
horse,  the  elephant  as  the  prime  subjects  of 
its  work.  Antiquity  knew  such  sculpture 
as  this,  a fact  which  has  been  revealed  to  us 
by  the  excavations  at  Herculaneum  and  at 
Pompeii,  and  which  is  recorded  for  us  in 
the  bronze  collection  at  the  Naples  Museum  ; 
but  we  know  little  of  how  the  horses  and 
stags  at  Herculaneum  were  set  up  in 
[148] 


Recent  Art,  Part  I,  Form 

place  ; and  it  really  was  a bold  thing  for 
Barye  to  fill  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century  with  his  struggling  and  prowling 
beasts  of  prey — works  which  he  alternated 
with  highly  classical  groups  of  athletes  and 
centaurs.  Nor  was  Barye  left  long  alone  in 
this  pursuit.  The  ferocious  creatures  of 
Auguste-Nicolas  Cain  succeeded  them,  and 
went  even  a step  farther  in  realism  as  well 
as  in  the  size  and  monumental  importance 
of  the  pieces.  Thus  the  lion  and  lioness 
(Plate  XXXVIII),  concerned  with  the  car- 
cass of  a boar  which  the  lion  proposes  to 
have  to  himself  until  he  has  had  his  fill, 
form  a group  of  great  dignity  in  spite  of  the 
vigorous  action  which  it  suggests.  Such 
action  is  carried  farther  in  other  pieces,  and 
there  are  those  groups  of  the  great  cats 
which  are  repulsive  in  their  torturing 
struggles,  the  violent  deaths  which  they 
are  about  to  die,  their  ferocity,  their  greed. 
It  is  a side  of  nature  to  be  ignored  when 
one  is  not  compelled  to  face  it,  and  in  art 
one  is  never  compelled  to  face  it.  More 
agreeable  is  the  study  of  creatures  which 
L 149  ] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

have  dignity  without  ferocity.  When  the 
Trocad6ro  Palace  was  built  in  time  for  the 
exposition  of  1878,  there  were  set  up,  at  the 
four  corners  of  the  tank  or  basin  into  which 
ran  the  cascade  from  the  Chateau  d’Eau, 
four  magnificent  beasts,  the  horse  by  Cain, 
the  elephant  and  the  rhinoceros  by  Fremiet, 
and  the  bull  of  Jacquemart : and  these  are 
splendid  decorative  objects  forming  as  com- 
pletely as  a simple  composition  can,  a 
worthy  setting  to  this  interesting  architec- 
tural centre.  The  last  named  piece  forms 
the  subject  of  our  Plate  XXXIX.  These 
animal  sculptures  are  to  be  taken  as  seriously 
as  any  study  of  humanity,  the  purpose  be- 
ing the  same  as  that  in  the  noblest  works  of 
human  sculpture,  namely,  fine  decorative 
and  purely  artistic  effects,  with  this  only 
drawback,  that  to  our  eyes  the  forms  of  man- 
kind are  more  subtile  and  therefore  are  cap- 
able of  being  far  more  noble  than  those  of 
the  lower  animals. 


[150] 


Plate  XXXIX. — decorative  figure,  the  bull,  by  a.  h.  m.  jacquemart  (b.  1824). 


Plate  XL. — IDEAL  PORTRAIT  OF  THE  PRINCE  OF  CONDE,  VICTOR  OF  ROCROYJ, 
J3Y  CANIEZ. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

RECENT  ART,  PART  II,  SENTIMENT 

The  second  of  those  divisions  into  which 
we  have  parted,  rudely  enough,  the  sculp- 
ture of  our  contemporaries  (Page  137),  is 
concerned  with  Sentiment.  In  this  connec- 
tion, of  course,  there  is  room  for  infinite 
failure  to  understand — there  is  room  for 
quite  immeasurable  differences  of  opinion 
as  to  what  should  go  into  the  monumental 
and  what  into  the  sympathetic  group.  For, 
to  consider  at  once  such  a piece  as  the 
very  attractive  one  at  the  Ecole  Militaire, 
the  statue,  an  ideal  portrait,  of  Le  Grand 
Conde  (Plate  XL),  we  note  that  an  ideal 
statue  is  at  once  a decorative  piece  intended 
to  adorn  a hall,  a frontispiece  of  a great 
building,  or  the  like  and  a study  in  patri- 
otic or  purely  historical  record.  The  artist 
is  free  to  study  the  known  portraits  of  his 
subject  as  far  as  he  pleases,  and  in  this  very 
instance  Mr.  Caniez  had  an  excellent  con- 
temporary original  to  study — Coysevox’ 
[151] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

bust  of  Conde  now  in  the  Louvre.  He  is 
also  at  liberty  to  stop  where  he  pleases. 
There  is  really  no  check  upon  him  in  that 
direction  ; and  if  Mr.  Caniez  had  fancied 
that  he  could  make  a better  hero  of  the 
Field  of  Rocroy  than  that  which  contem- 
porary portraits  had  preserved  for  him,  he 
would  have  felt  at  liberty  to  study  his  own 
conceptions  rather  than  the  bust  named 
above,  or  the  one  preserved  at  Chantilly. 
Consider,  then,  this  piece  as  an  ideal  sculp- 
ture, intended  to  express  that  kind  of  hero- 
ism which  we  accept  as  being  of  the  time  of 
transition  between  the  Middle  Ages  and 
modern  times,  that  shifty,  dexterous,  polit- 
ical heroism  which  knew  how  to  be  bold 
and  effective  at  the  right  time,  and  at  the 
right  time  knew  how  to  defer  to  royalty,  to 
play  the  courtier,  to  seize  without  hesitation 
on  advantages  which  might  offer  them- 
selves. Ideal  portraiture  has  always  been 
interesting,  and  many  sculptors  have  pre- 
ferred it,  it  would  almost  seem,  to  all  other 
forms  of  the  sculptor's  art.  Take  one 
of  a different  character,  the  monument 
[152] 


Plate  XLI. — MONUMENT  TO  THE  ADMIRAL  GASPARD  DE  COLIGNY;  BY  CRAUK: 
DECORATING  THE  APSE  OF  THE  ORATOIRE,  AT  PARIS. 


X O 


P3  Ph 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

to  Gaspard  de  Coligny  (Plate  XLI).  This 
work  is  on  the  north  side  of  the  Rue 
de  Rivoli  at  Paris,  part  of  the  apse 
of  the  Oratoire,  and  therefore  is  monu- 
mental sculpture.  As  such  we  might  con- 
sider it  in  a future  chapter,  but,  as  for 
our  present  purpose,  the  ideal  portrait  is 
much  the  most  important  part  of  the  whole 
group.  This  might  be  treated  with  unre- 
served dignity  as  a statue  altogether  heroic  ; 
because  those  who  care  for  the  famous 
admiral,  the  first  and  most  celebrated  victim 
of  the  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew’s  Eve, 
care  for  him  very  much,  and,  in  a certain 
fashion  as  for  the  hero  of  their  cause.  It  is 
treated  in  a way  far  more  abstract  than  that 
which  is  allowed  to  the  Conde.  Even  the 
costume  is  handled  with  reserve,  though 
most  carefully  studied  from  the  monuments 
of  the  time. 

With  these  is  to  be  compared  a piece  as 
important  as  they,  the  Michelangelo  of  Paul 
Wayland  Bartlett  (Plate  XLII).  In  this 
work  a really  interesting  thought  has  been 
embodied  ; the  thought  that  Michelangelo 
[153] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

was  in  his  person  not  the  lordly  being  that 
we  think  of  as  we  study  his  art ; but  a 
slender,  not  lusty,  not  triumphant  looking 
man  at  all,  small  rather  than  large,  with 
disfigured  face  and  with  but  little  charm  of 
personality.  The  treatment  of  him  as  a 
stone  mason  with  leather  apron  and  all  the 
signs  of  vigorous  manual  labor,  is  only  a 
suggestion  of  that  tradition  of  the  great 
sculptor,  the  well  known  story  of  the 
handling  of  the  marble  himself  with  strong 
and  regular  hammer  blows  “ taking  off 
great  pieces  so  that  danger  seemed  to 
threaten  the  outlines  of  the  sculpture/' 
The  conditions  of  such  sculpture  are  in- 
deed of  the  most  interesting  possible.  They 
connect  in  a curious  way  the  study  of  the 
beautiful  form,  interesting  form,  suggestive 
form  taken  by  itself,  with  our  historical 
recollections  and  our  personal  affinities. 
One  sympathizes  with  the  rich  man  who 
paid  Rude  for  an  ideal  statue  of  Napoleon 
Bonaparte  ; with  the  builders  of  the  Oxford 
museum  and  their  life-size  portrait  statues 
of  Bacon,  Leibnitz  and  Newton  ; with  the 
[154] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

similar  calling  up  of  old  times  in  the 
Library  of  Congress  at  Washington,  of  which 
the  statue  Plate  XLII  is  an  important  part. 
In  a curious  way  it  is  the  reverse  of  the  old 
custom  according  to  which  the  persons  of 
our  own  time  are  travestied  into  heroes  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  Greenough’s  Washington 
east  of  the  capitol,  is  not  at  all  a work  of 
art  which  should  be  ridiculed.  There  is  no 
better  specimen  of  that  class  which  includes 
those  stately  Roman  emperors  which  are 
ranged  along  the  walls  of  the  Museo 
Chiaramonti — a deified  Trajan  and  alas ! 
also  a deified  Commodus.  So  when  the 
sculptor  wished  to  give  King  Frederick  the 
Great  the  representation  of  his  military 
following  in  classical  costume,  the  king  (or 
the  queen  acting  for  him)  pointed  out  that 
it  was  not  a case  of  Roman  soldiers,  that  it 
was  Prussians  who  were  wanted.  This  hint 
was  not  given  to  the  great  Francois  Rude 
when  he  was  at  the  point  of  undertaking 
his  most  renowned,  perhaps  even  his 
greatest  work,  the  splendid  Departure  for 
War  ( “ La  Marseillaise  ” ) on  the  Paris 
[155] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

front  of  the  Arc  de  l’Etoile.  Plate  XLIII 
shows  this  colossal  group  in  its  completeness, 
and  gives  one  a thrill  of  regret  that  there 
was  absolutely  no  realistic  thought  as  to  the 
costume  and  the  personages  allowed  the 
artist,  that  he  was  left  to  the  notions  of  the 
revolutionary  epoch  as  to  what  would  look 
warlike — that  he  armed  his  heroes,  young 
and  old,  with  pieces  of  plate  armor  and 
shirts  of  mail  gathered  promiscuously  from 
a great  museum  of  all  the  history  of  the 
past.  It  is  no  great  matter  here ; the  vigor 
and  rush  of  the  composition  is  everything ; 
it  is  almost  as  absurd  to  find  fault  with  the 
linked  mail  of  the  foreground  heroes,  as  it 
is  to  object  to  the  lorica  worn  by  the  fero- 
cious Bellona,  who  cheers  her  hosts  on  to 
war  ; and  yet  one  would  like  so  much  to  see 
what  Rude  would  have  done  with  the  dress 
of  his  own  time,  as  worn  by  soldiers  called 
out  on  the  levee  en  masse — a touch  of  realism 
in  this  great  work  would  have  been  so  great 
a strengthener  of  the  patriotic  sentiment ! 
One  would  have  liked  those  improvised 
warriors,  the  armed  and  arming  citizens, 
[156] 


Plate  XLIII.  alto  relief  called  “la  Marseillaise;”  by  FRANgois  rude, 

(1784-1855);  ONE  OF  THE  FOUR  GREAT  GROUPS  ADORNING  THE  ARC  DE 
L’ETOTLE,  AT  PARIS. 


Plate  XLIV. — the  four  quarters  of  the  world,  group  by  jean-baptiste  carpeaux. 

A.  THE  PLASTER  CAST  AS  EXHIBITED. 

B.  THE  BRONZE  IN  LUXEMBOURG  GARDEN. 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

much  better,  had  they  been  Frenchmen  of 
1789  in  dress,  in  form,  in  face,  in  bearing. 

Closely  connected  with  this  matter  of 
ideal  portraiture  is  that  metaphorical  or 
symbolical  sculpture  of  which  we  have  so 
much.  The  beginnings  of  American  art 
accept  the  symbolical  as  readily  as  does  the 
developed  art  of  the  French.  Jean  Baptiste 
Carpeaux’  group,  The  Four  Quarters  of  the 
World  following  one  another  in  order  as 
marking  the  revolution  of  the  Celestial 
Globe,  is  not  more  completely  the  embodi- 
ment of  such  abstract  ideas  than  are  the 
sculptures  with  which  the  Americans  of  our 
own  day  adorn  in  plaster  the  great  exposi- 
tions as  they  succeed  one  another,  or  com- 
plete in  stone  and  bronze  the  permanent 
buildings  of  the  great  cities.  Plate  XLIV 
gives  this  important  group  in  two  aspects, 
the  difference  in  the  accessory  picture  being 
merely  in  this — that  the  one  photograph  is 
from  the  plaster  model  shown  at  the  Salon 
in  1872,  the  other  from  the  bronze  in  the 
Luxembourg  Garden,  put  in  place  about 
1876.  This  work  is  of  peculiar  interest  to 
[157] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

students  of  sculpture  because  there  is  seen  in 
it  the  striving  of  the  two  powerful  tenden- 
cies— the  one  towards  a pronounced  discrimi- 
nation between  the  forms  of  different  races  of 
mankind — the  other,  the  classical  tradition 
which  says  that  the  form  of  man  or  of 
woman  is  to  be  modelled  according  to  a cer- 
tain standard — not  a formula  so  much  as  a 
habit  of  mind  when  the  sculptor  takes 
modelling  tools  in  hand.  Thus  if  we  were 
to  refer  as  to  an  authority  to  the  careful 
book  by  Dr.  C.  H.  Stratz,  “ Die  Rassen- 
schonheit  des  Weibes,”  we  should  be  led  to 
believe  that  these  Carpeaux  statues  of  the 
negress,  the  Asiatic  woman  and  the  red 
woman  of  America,  were  feeble  reflections 
of  the  marked  and  emphatic  facts  of  nature 
as  shown  in  the  woman  of  the  white  race ; 
but  then  a second  thought  would  suggest — 
a second  examination  would  show — that  the 
modelling  of  the  European  figure  also  was 
an  abstraction.  The  body  of  the  woman  is 
not  so  made  in  any  race  that  has  ever  lived 
on  earth.  Feminine  beauty  is  one  thing ; 
the  beauty  of  a female  statue  is  another, 
[158] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

so  remote  from  the  natural  beauty  from 
which  it  takes  its  origin  that  you  feel 
as  often  the  remoteness  as  the  resemblance. 
There  are  opportunities  enough  in  this 
treatise  to  dwell  upon  the  same  truth  with 
regard  to  the  form  of  man  ; but  there  is, 
perhaps,  not  so  good  an  opportunity  to  con- 
sider this  general  truth  when  it  relates  to 
the  form  of  woman. 

Of  course  this  strongly  marked  charac- 
teristic is  in  no  way  a fault ; neither  is  it  to 
be  imputed  to  any  sculptor  as  a merit.  It 
is  simply  in  the  nature  of  the  art  as  we 
now  know  it,  as  we  inherited  it  from  gen- 
erations of  ancestors  as  wise  as  we ; as  we 
find  it  embodied  if  we  look  back  to  the 
works  of  our  real  masters,  the  Greeks. 

The  Aphrodite  of  the  Capitol  (Plate  XI) 
is  indeed  a realistic  conception.  The  Aph- 
rodite of  Melos  (Plate  X)  is  an  extremely 
conventional  one,  a figure  carried  far  in- 
deed towards  a controlling,  universal  ideal ; 
yet  it  would  be  hard  to  say  that  the  ex- 
tremely naturalistic  statue  in  Rome  is 
more  truly  an  actual  copy  of  the  form  of 
[159] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

woman  than  is  the  abstract  and  goddess- 
like figure  of  the  Louvre.  In  like  manner 
the  group  by  Carpeaux  is  modelled  with 
strict  reference  to  a monumental  effect. 
The  four  figures  have  to  be  a little  more 
powerfully  built,  and  a little  less  exclu- 
sively feminine  in  modelling,  in  pose,  and 
in  seeming  action,  because  they  have  to 
lead  up  to  that  superincumbent  mass.  For 
the  same  reason  they  are  a little  taller,  a 
little  less  compact  and  stocky  than  the 
artist  would  find  the  women  of  most  of  the 
four  races  portrayed.  In  like  manner, 
again,  the  supposedly  inferior  forms  of 
negress  and  American  are  of  necessity 
treated  more  in  the  line  of  purely  classical 
standards  of  excellence  because  of  their  im- 
mediate connection  in  the  group  with  the 
entirely  ideal  European  figure.  All  these 
considerations  worked  together,  as  they 
must  work  in  the  mind  of  so  powerful  and 
altogether  competent  an  artist,  to  produce 
a work  absolutely  remote  from  realism  in 
the  strict  sense.  J.  Q.  A.  Ward,  in  his 
Freedman,  the  statuette  of  1863,  and  in  his 
[160] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

Indian  Hunter  of  Central  Park,  has  made 
careful  studies  of  the  form  of  man  of  the 
black  and  of  the  red  race,  and  his  purpose 
was  in  those  cases  strictly  descriptive  ; his 
business  was  to  attract  sympathy  for  the 
newly  freed  black  of  the  southern  states, 
and  for  the  naked  hunter  of  the  plains. 
Just  so  far,  then,  as  he  was  employed  in 
recording  the  peculiarities  of  these  two 
races  of  men,  his  work  may  be  thought  to 
be  non-artistic — to  be  in  a sense  that  of  the 
historian  rather  than  of  the  artist ; for  al- 
though the  artist  has  often  dealt  with  that 
which  is  less  than  perfectly  matured,  or 
perfectly  composed,  or  perfectly  developed, 
and  although  he  makes  of  that  very  de- 
ficiency a quality  peculiar  to  his  work  of 
art,  the  production  of  that  abnormal  qual- 
ity is,  in  a sense,  the  forcing  of  the  artistic 
thought  away  from  its  due  severity  of  con- 
centration. The  Indian  Hunter  is  an  ad- 
mirable group  of  man  and  dog,  but  the 
lover  of  sculpture  would  be  glad  to  replace 
it  by  an  equally  thorough  and  complete 
study  of  a man  of  the  highest  known  race, 
[161] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

idealized  as  to  his  figure  according  to  the 
noblest  Greek  tradition,  and  posed  in  a 
more  strictly  graceful  attitude.  The  reader 
will  note  that  it  is  not  here  suggested  that 
all  studies  of  inferior  forms  should  be  des- 
troyed to  make  room  for  ideal  statues. 
No  one  who  loves  book  illustration  of  high 
quality,  or  who  cares  for  grotesque  art,  for 
caricature,  for  the  exaggeration  of  archaic 
or  of  decadent  art,  no  one,  in  short,  who 
has  a catholic  taste  in  art,  would  wish  to 
see  the  amount  of  that  sort  of  sculpture 
which  is  removed  from  the  great  central 
stream  of  tradition  diminished  or  hidden 
away  in  corners.  All  that  one  asks  is  a 
great  increase  in  number  of  the  sculptures 
of  ideal  perfection. 

The  sentiment  of  ordinary  human  life  as 
distinguished  from  the  purely  artistic  senti- 
ment of  grandiose  sculpture  is,  of  course, 
more  easily  obtained  in  figures  represented 
with  the  clothing  of  the  sculptor’s  own 
time.  It  becomes,  therefore,  one  of  the 
most  interesting  of  the  minor  considera- 
tions in  sculpture  to  note  the  way  in  which 
[162] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

the  artist  sometimes  tries  to  simplify  mod- 
ern costumes  into  the  semblance  of  antique 
severity  ; and  on  the  other  hand  how  he 
enjoys  sometimes  the  investing  of  the  dress 
of  his  figures  with  the  accessory  splendors 
of  embroidery  and  jewelry.  Both  are  rec- 
ognized devices  of  the  artist,  and  either  is 
acceptable  ; but  it  is  the  former,  the  simpli- 
fying of  dress,  the  rendering  of  the  essential 
and  abstract,  that  one  must  often  treat  in 
considering  sculpture  of  dignity. 

Plate  XLV  shows  a group  by  Albert  Le- 
feuvre  which  was  exhibited  in  the  Salon  of 
1878  and  again  in  the  Triennial  Exhibition 
of  1883.  It  impressed  those  who  saw  it  in 
its  crowded  surroundings  as  a group  of 
singular  significance,  both  artistic  and 
pathetic.  On  their  way  home  from  the 
field  where  their  toil  has  been  severe,  the 
two  laborers  stop  by  a brook,  and  the  man 
lies  down  to  drink  from  the  flowing  water. 
Thoughtful,  patient,  the  woman  stands 
waiting.  The  spectator  is  not  told  whether 
she  has  had  her  refreshing  drink  or  whether 
she  is  waiting  for  that  as  well  as  for  her 
[163] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

companion.  It  is  in  that  way  that  living 
groups  appeal  to  us ; and  here  is  an  attempt 
to  leave  just  as  much  of  the  situation  unex- 
plained as  in  the  case  of  the  living  group. 
We,  the  spectators,  wait  also,  but  we  shall 
not  see  the  figures  move.  Meantime  we  are 
left  with  a satisfied  sense  of  human  beauty 
and  human  character  well  and  nobly  ex- 
pressed. One  might  easily  ask  for  a more 
complete  realization  of  the  matter  of  costume 
in  that  an  ampler  dress  be  given  to  the  man 
— something  as  adequate  as  the  excellently 
devised  dress  of  the  woman.  It  seems  like 
shirking  a difficulty  to  leave  the  torso,  the 
shoulders  and  arms  naked  in  a statue  of  the 
modern  sort. 

The  touching  group  by  Camille  Lefevre 
shown  in  Plate  XLVI  is  an  example  of 
pathos,  of  patient  suffering  carried  as  far  as 
the  artist  has  a right  to  go — as  far  as  the 
spectator  can  be  expected  to  follow  him. 
The  dress  here  is  that  of  the  Paris  street  in 
winter.  Child  and  mother  alike  are  pro- 
tected from  the  cold  by  such  rough  gar- 
ments as  their  poor  fortunes  allow.  The 
[164] 


Plate  XLV. — group,  apres  le  travail;  by  lefeuvre. 


Plate  XLVI.  — statue  or  group,  dans  la  rue;  by  camille  lefevre. 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

woman  is  trying  to  sell  fruit  from  a poor 
little  basket  in  which  we  think  is  invested 
all  her  capital.  Exposure,  anxiety — not 
starvation  exactly,  but  short  commons  often 
— prevailing,  and  the  presence  of  frequent 
and  bitter  tears  have  modified  the  mother’s 
countenance,  and  the  expression  of  that  new 
face  as  of  one  created  expressly  for  her 
changed  condition,  is  contrasted  with  the 
entirely  tranquil  and  merely  pensive  face  of 
the  child.  The  figure  is  admirable  in  its 
pose,  as  would  be  visible  if  we  could  com- 
pare several  views  of  it ; and  the  great  ques- 
tion for  the  student  to  consider  is,  probably, 
whether  the  art  of  the  sculptor  should  be 
forced  so  far  out  of  its  path  into  the  way  of 
the  painter,  which  may  be  the  delineation 
of  human  sorrow  and  joy ; or,  indeed,  into 
the  way  of  the  poet  using  the  language  of 
words,  to  whom  such  sentiment  is  the  chief, 
the  greatest  of  his  subjects  of  thought. 

Turning  now  to  a very  different  group,  to 
a piece  of  painter’s  sculpture  in  every  sense 
of  that  term  (see  Plate  XLVII),  the  group 
which  is  set  upon  the  pedestal  of  the  statue 
[165] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

to  Alexandre  Dumas  has  that  complexity 
of  non-artistic  significance  one  looks  for  in 
the  works  of  Gustave  Dore,  himself  not  a 
sculptor  by  the  habit  of  his  life.  The 
monument  is  in  the  Place  Malesherbes,  and 
was  erected  by  popular  subscription.  We 
are  concerned  now  rather  with  the  thought 
expressed  by  the  group  of  readers.  A young 
woman  is  reading  intently  from  a romance 
of  Alexandre  the  Great  and  there  are  listen- 
ing to  it  two — one  of  whom — like  the  en- 
thusiastic and  literary-minded  youth  that 
he  is — cannot  keep  from  watching  the  page 
over  his  sister’s  shoulder.  The  other  lis- 
tener, a much  older  man,  in  the  dress  of  a 
workman  in  the  heavy  labors  of  the  forge 
and  the  machine-shop,  is  not  so  much  ac- 
customed to  take  in  his  information  through 
the  eyes,  and  he  listens  with  all  his  ears 
while  he  looks  abroad  over  the  landscape. 
That  is  a true  memorial  to  Alexandre  Dumas ; 
it  is  in  that  way  that  the  French  people 
of  all  classes  of  society  except  the  severely 
literary  on  the  one  hand  and  the  very  low- 
est and  least  educated  on  the  other,  are  in- 
[166] 


Plate  XLVII. — group,  the  rfaders  of  dumas;  by  gustave  dore,  from 

THE  MONUMENT  TO  ALEXANDRE  DUMAS;  PLACE  MALESHERBES,  PARIS. 


Plate  XLVIII. — relief,  the  army;  by  Frederick  macmonnies  (b.  1863); 

FROM  THE  PLASTER  MODEL. 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

fluenced  by  the  enchantment  of  the  great 
popular  writer,  the  vulgarisateur  as  he  called 
himself.  It  is  interesting  to  follow  the  sub- 
ject farther  and  enquire  how  the  sculptors 
of  different  schools  and  different  moods 
would  consider  those  peculiarities  of  group- 
ing and  of  pose  which  distinguish  essentially 
this  remarkable  composition.  The  concen- 
trating of  the  triple  group  at  top,  and  again 
below,  where  the  six  feet  are  grouped  in  a pic- 
turesque and  wholly  realistic  series  of  poses, 
seems  to  the  writer  an  admirable  and  truly 
sculpturesque  thought,  although  originating 
in  the  artistical  conception  of  a fantastic  and 
unrestrained  book  illustrator — a master  at 
once  and  a slave,  of  wild  exaggeration. 

Military  patriotism  of  the  popular  sort 
has  been  touched  upon  in  this  enquiry  in 
what  has  been  said  of  the  famous  group  by 
Francois  Rude  on  the  great  triumphal  arch 
of  Paris.  The  contemporary  understanding 
of  it  may  be  thought  to  be  well  expressed 
in  the  reliefs  by  Frederick  W.  MacMonnies, 
on  the  memorial  arch  in  Brooklyn.  Plate 
XLVIII,  shows  the  model  of  this  work  as  ex- 
[167] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

hibited  at  Paris,  and  there  may  be  noted  in 
it  the  same  disposition  to  mingle  symbol- 
ism and  reality  which  we  find  in  the  ex- 
ample shown  in  Plate  XLIII ; though  here 
there  is  a step  taken  farther  towards  real- 
ism in  the  free  use  of  the  uniforms  of  the 
day.  It  must  always  be  a moot  point — the 
propriety  of  this  mingling  of  the  real  and  the 
wholly  imaginary  ; the  Bellona  leading  a 
crowd  of  riflemen,  the  Greek  Victory  blow- 
ing a clarion  to  guide  or  to  stimulate  sol- 
diers furnished  with  firearms  of  precision 
and  coming  on  with  fixed  bayonets.  In 
the  case  before  us  there  is  a Roman  legion- 
ary eagle  visible  in  the  background  and 
there  is  something  about  the  armor  of  the 
winged  Victory  which  suggests  to  us  the 
time  of  the  great  Empire  ; but  that  is  in- 
different. When  we  were  told,  last  year, 
that  the  recently-ordered  paintings  in  the 
Memorial  Hall  of  the  Boston  State  House 
were  to  be  historical  and  not  symbolic, 
some  persons  rejoiced,  and  their  pleasure 
was  confirmed  when  two  at  least  of  the 
four  paintings  proved  to  be  strictly  pictures 
[168] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

of  record — treated  in  an  imaginative  way  in- 
deed and  admirable  as  compositions  in  form 
and  in  color,  but  still  historical  pictures, 
with  no  suggestion  of  anything  more  than 
the  day  and  the  event  which  the  picture 
had  to  commemorate.  There  may  be  per- 
sons who  like  the  other  two  pictures  all  the 
better  that  they  add  the  symbolism  of 
Patriotism  and  Victory,  or  Courage  and 
Virtue,  or  other  embodied  principles  min- 
gled with  their  historical  character  ; and  so 
in  this  case  it  is  not  submitted  as  a neces- 
sarily erroneous  course  to  follow,  this  in 
which  the  body,  which  is  the  purpose  and 
ultimate  aim  of  sculpture,  is  to  be  traced 
beneath  the  buttons  and  military  costume 
in  the  one  case,  beneath  a scale-coat  with 
pauldrons  in  the  other  case  ; or  that  the 
ugly  kepi  of  the  nineteenth  century  soldiers 
is  contrasted  with  the  beautiful  helm  of  the 
goddess.  In  either  case  the  piece  must 
stand  or  fall  by  its  merits  as  a work  of 
sculpture,  fine  or  less  fine  in  its  details, 
noble  or  less  noble  in  its  composition  and 
in  its  main  lines. 


[169] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

The  Military  Courage  of  Paul  Dubois  (see 
Plate  XLIX)  is  an  ideal  figure,  well  known 
because  of  the  immense  reputation  of  the 
monument  to  which  it  belongs,  that  beauti- 
ful tomb  of  the  general  Juchault  de  la  Mori- 
ciere,  of  which  the  architectural  disposition 
is  due  to  the  refined  genius  of  the  architect 
Boitte.  The  famous  and  admirable  sculp- 
tor, Paul  Dubois,  is  one  of  the  Academics, 
the  chief  of  those  who  follow  the  traditions 
of  the  French  school,  in  doing  this  neither 
worse  nor  better  as  an  artist.  To  say  that 
he  is  this  is  merely  to  account  in  part  for 
the  severity  of  his  compositions  and  the 
absence  from  all  of  them  of  any  very  bold 
and  “ new  departure  ” towards  undiscov- 
ered realms.  Let  us  note  then,  the  methods 
of  an  artist  taught  in  the  schools  which 
make  Greek  perfection  of  modelling  their 
aim,  but  Italian  grace  of  the  Renaissance  a 
secondary  object,  using  indeed  the  less  re- 
mote experience  of  Italy  in  the  fifteenth 
century  to  supply  that  missing  knowledge 
of  the  many  modifications  of  Greek  sculp- 
ture which  assuredly  existed,  though  we  of 
[170] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

the  modern  world  know  them  not.  Italy 
and  Greece  alike  recognized  all  this  accou- 
trement of  the  partly-clothed  military  figure, 
the  nude  throat,  arms  and  legs,  the  body 
clothed  in  a leather  tunic,  the  feet  in  leath- 
ern buskins  of  which  it  is  true  the  design 
is  very  realistic  indeed,  the  panther’s  skin 
worn  on  the  shoulder  as  an  additional  de- 
fense, or  for  warmth,  or  as  a trophy.  The 
figure  so  clothed  is  crowned  with  a helmet 
of  very  independent  design,  like  nothing 
actually  known  of  the  north  or  of  the  south 
—of  antiquity  or  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
sword,  in  like  manner,  is  certainly  not  an- 
tique, nor  can  it  be  imagined  as  the 
weapon  of  one  of  those  races  whose  garb  of 
fence  was  as  slight  and  unformed  as  the 
one  before  us ; it  is  the  sword  of  the  six- 
teenth century  warrior.  All  of  which 
means  that  we  have  not  here  an  archaeo- 
logical study  at  all,  but  a serious  attempt 
to  create  a typical  warrior,  the  success  of 
the  attempt  to  be  gauged  by  the  good  taste 
shown  and  the  contentment  the  student 
has  in  accepting  it  for  what  it  is  intended 
[171] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

to  be.  The  other  three  attendant  figures  at 
the  corners  of  the  tomb  are  Faith,  Charity 
and  Wisdom  ; it  is  therefore  seen  that  while 
these  four  qualities  are  assigned  to  the  dead 
man,  the  famous  leader  of  the  last  army  of 
defense  on  which  the  Papal  government 
could  rely  as  against  Garibaldi,  so  the 
artistic  character  of  each  one  of  the  figures 
must  be  as  abstract  as  this  one.  It  would 
not  do  to  make  a Sister  of  Charity  or  a nun 
or  a professor  of  the  Sorbonne  of  any  one 
of  the  other  three  figures,  because  that  would 
be  to  connect  our  hero — the  dead  man — 
to  many  narrow  and  temporary  systems  of 
thought  for  which  he  is  not  to  be  held  re- 
sponsible. Indeed,  it  does  not  require  much 
argument  to  show  the  probable  necessity  of 
treating  such  an  embodiment  of  Courage 
in  the  abstract  way  in  which  it  is  treated 
here. 

And  now  to  take  up  one  of  the  most 
complex  achievements  of  modern  times  and 
one  about  which  there  must,  of  necessity, 
be  many  diverse  and  clashing  opinions — 
take  the  Monument  to  the  Dead  in  the 
[172] 


MEmUULE  . 

^ O'HOmtEV  - J 


Plate  XLIX. — statue,  military  courage;  by  paul  dubois  (b.  1829)  from 

THE  MONUMENT  TO  GENERAL  LA  MORICIERE  IN  THE  CATHEDRAL  AT  NANTES; 
FROM  THE  PLASTER  AS  EXHIBITED. 


Plate  L. — LE  MONUMENT  DES  MORTSJ  BY  ALBERT  BARTHOLOMEW  PLASTER  STUDY 
FOR  THE  MONUMENT  ERECTED  IN  THE  CEMETERY  OF  PERE-LA-CHAISE,  PARIS. 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

cemetery  of  Pere  la  Chaise,  the  work  of 
Albert  Bartholome ; Plate  L shows  the 
full  disposition  of  the  monument  as  exhib- 
ited in  the  large  model  in  the  exposition  of 
1900,  and  this  arrangement  of  the  sculp- 
tured figures  is  that  which  was  exactly  fol- 
lowed in  the  executed  monument,  although 
the  architectural  forms  have  been  slightly 
varied.  Our  present  purpose  is  most  nearly 
served  by  the  study  of  the  two  figures  which, 
taken  together  with  the  doorway  in  which 
they  are  engaged,  form  the  central  feature 
of  the  whole  work.  This  may  be  thought 
ethical  in  a high  degree,  the  more  touching 
that  it  is  so  wholly  general  in  its  appeal  to 
humanity.  The  man  and  the  woman  enter 
the  darkness  of  the  tomb  side  by  side,  and 
the  man  is  immersed  in  his  own  anticipa- 
tions, not  necessarily  selfish  ones  either,  but 
because  it  is  for  him  to  look  ahead.  The 
woman  looks  rather  to  the  man,  and  this 
for  the  giving  as  well  as  the  taking  of  such 
help  as  sympathy  may  afford.  It  will  not 
seem  to  our  readers  an  excessive  amount  of 
“ reading  in  ” if  we  ascribe  all  this  signif- 
[173] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

icance  to  the  group  before  us.  Another 
question  is,  however,  less  certain  to  be  an- 
swered alike  by  all  students  of  art — How 
far  is  it  wise  and  expedient  to  treat  the  two 
nude  figures  in  as  off-hand  and  realistic  a 
way  as  this — how  nearly  may  it  be  con- 
doned that  they  are  somewhat  less  charm- 
ing, each  by  itself,  than  the  figures  of  con- 
vention which  we  expect  to  find,  and  which 
we  find,  in  the  ideal  statues  of  our  times  ? 
Neither  the  male  nor  the  female  figure  is 
treated  here  in  the  noblest  way.  Each  is 
much  more  closely  studied  from  the  living 
models,  which  can  never  give  a result  of 
dignity  or  of  perfect  grace.  It  was  not  in- 
tended, perhaps,  to  give  dignity  and  perfect 
grace  to  these  embodiments  of  actual  hu- 
manity. The  same  line  of  thought,  both  in 
the  basic  sentiment  and  in  the  sculpturesque 
conception,  is  shown  in  the  series  of  figures 
on  either  side  of  the  doorway.  There  is 
fear  and  distress,  there  is  resignation  and 
even  what  may  be  thought  indifference  on 
the  part  of  tottering  age ; there  is  farewell 
to  earth  expressed  without  bitterness,  and 
[174] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

there  is  the  expression  of  tranquil  hope. 
For  all  this  rendering  of  daily  experience 
no  classically  perfect  form  of  the  sculp- 
turesque ideal  would  have  served  the  turn. 
It  was  necessary  to  be  realistic ; and  the  re- 
sult of  the  realistic  treatment  is  seen  in 
what  is,  after  all,  a huddled  crowd  of 
studies  from  the  living  model.  That  in 
this  way  a less  attractive,  a less  imposing, 
piece  of  sculpture  is  obtained  is  one  of  the 
most  important  demonstrations  which  such 
an  enquiry  as  this  may  lead  to.  Compare 
these  grouped  figures  with  the  Parthenon 
relief  or  statues  (Plates  I,  III  and  V),  or  the 
Reims  statues  (Plate  XXI),  or  the  Michel- 
angelo tomb  (Plate  XXVI),  or  the  Carpeaux 
group  (Plate  XLIV),  to  learn  how  much 
sculpture  owes  to  those  conventions  which 
separate  her  creations  from  the  works  of 
nature  which  have  been  her  inspiration. 

Consider  now  the  extreme  appeal  to  pity 
and  to  affection.  The  Saint  Veronica  by 
Carli  (Plate  LI),  should  be  taken  as  typical. 
The  legend  is  that  as  Jesus  fell  under  the 
weight  of  the  cross  a woman  kneeled  beside 
[175] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

him  and  wiped  the  sweat  from  his  face 
with  her  veil,  and  that  upon  this  veil  an 
image  of  the  Divine  face  was  found  to  be 
imprinted  forever.  But  this  legend  suf- 
fices merely  to  give  a name  to  the  piece. 
Its  real  interest  is  in  the  image  of  serious, 
careful  and  conscious  ministry  to  suffering, 
which  is  made  the  more  plain  to  our  per- 
ceptions by  its  associations  with  the  Re- 
deemer and  the  Stations  of  the  Cross.  It 
has  always  been  one  of  the  expedients  of 
preachers  of  religion  to  appeal  strongly  to 
the  sympathy  of  their  hearers,  and  the 
great  Baptist  orator,  Spurgeon,  was  as  ready 
to  insist  upon  the  frightful  details  of  the 
suffering  of  Jesus  as  any  devout  Roman 
Catholic  artist.  The  question  is  merely 
with  the  artistic  propriety  of  such  strong 
appeals  to  sympathy  ; for  observe,  it  is  not 
now  the  question  whether  Christianity,  or 
any  form  of  Christianity,  gains  or  loses, 
but  whether  the  universal  doctrine  of  art 
admits  of  so  much  passionate  appeal  to 
sympathy. 

We  are  led  to  consider  actual  portraiture, 

[176] 


Plate  LI. — GROUP,  SAINT  VERONICA,  BY  CARLI, 


Plate  LIL— PORTRAIT  STATUE  of  the  physician  phillipe  ricord;  by  e.  l. 
BARRIAS  (b.  1841). 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

the  portraiture  of  the  day.  In  this  there 
would  be  found  a full  expression  of  sym- 
pathy and  of  the  strong  persona]  feeling 
which  the  artist  needs  if  he  is  to  be  really 
strong,  if  only  we  were  able  to  consider 
portraits  in  the  presence  of  their  originals. 
This  can  never  be ; and  portrait  sculp- 
ture is  hardly  a fit  subject  for  general  discus- 
sion. In  portrait  painting  we  look,  and 
properly,  for  the  evidence  of  masterly  work- 
manship, noble  coloring,  and  that  sort  of 
grasp  of  a subject  which  raises  it  in  its  artistic 
dress  into  a high  plane  of  merit.  But  in 
sculpture  the  requisites  of  portraiture  are  a 
little  less  easy  to  trace, — at  least  they  are  a 
little  less  easy  to  express  in  words.  We 
have  all  seen  the  portrait  bust  which  is 
developed  into  a noble  composition  although 
the  subject  is,  to  us,  a very  ignoble  person 
indeed,  unattractive  in  character,  unim- 
pressive in  outward  bearing.  It  is  a merit 
which  we  all  love  to  recognize,  a gift  given 
by  nature  but  perfected  by  training,  which 
enables  the  artist  to  make  his  statue  look 
like  the  person  represented  and  yet  look 
[177] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

better,  wiser,  nobler  than  he.  Now  in  the 
case  of  Dr.  Ricord,  perhaps  no  one  who 
reads  this  book  will  be  familiar  with  the 
shape  and  bearing  of  that  famous  physicist. 
But  in  that  statue  by  Louis  Ernest  Barrias 
(see  Plate  LII),  it  is  probable  that  all  will 
feel  the  very  admirable  presence  of  por- 
trait art.  In  the  Horace  Greeley  (Plate 
LIII),  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  modern 
portraiture  in  pure  form,  we  have  a study 
from  nature  whose  accuracy  and  whose 
dignity  at  once  can  be  more  easily  verified, 
for  there  are  many  still  living  who  can  re- 
call the  odd,  unimposing  figure  and  face  of 
the  celebrated  founder  of  the  New  York 
Tribune — the  most  unlucky  of  all  candi- 
dates for  the  presidency.  The  awkwardness, 
the  strange  face  and  figure,  had  to  be  noted 
by  the  artist,  and  the  disposition  and  pose 
of  the  man  in  his  armchair,  with  the  sheet 
of  manuscript,  and  the  bowed  though  still 
alert  attitude  as  of  a person  keenly  awake 
to  intellectual  questions,  is  all  perfectly  in 
harmony  with  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem. It  is  to  be  mentioned,  also,  that  the 
[178] 


Plate  LTTI. — portrait  statue  of  Horace  greeley; 

BY  J.  Q.  A.  WARD. 


Plate  LIV. PORTRAIT  OF  THE  PAINTER  JEAN  LEON  GEROME,  BY  J.  B.  CAR- 

PEAUX  (1827-1875). 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

necessity  of  placing  the  statue  in  front  of 
the  Tribune  office,  in  one  of  the  busiest 
corners  of  New  York,  and  of  raising  it 
above  the  crowded  sidewalk,  compelled  the 
placing  of  it  close  beneath  the  deep  and 
massive  segmental  arch,  one  of  the  great 
openings  of  the  basement  story.  All  these 
influences  acted  together  to  produce  a most 
unusual  and  striking  composition,  as  shown 
in  the  Plate. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  extraordinary 
school  of  portraiture  developed  in  France 
between  1875  and  the  close  of  the  century, 
and  embodied  the  most  frequently  in  heads 
alone — mere  heads,  in  each  case  supported 
on  its  characteristic  and  individual  neck— 
it  is  notable  how  detached,  how  vigorous 
and  even  violent  these  portrait  heads 
became.  The  head  of  the  painter,  Jean 
Leon  Gerome  (Plate  LIV)  by  that  same 
Carpeaux  who  modelled  the  Four  Quarters 
of  the  Globe  (Plate  XLIV),  is  one  of  the  most 
spirited  of  those  portrait  heads  which,  as 
the  visitors  to  the  Salon  know  well,  are 
scattered  about  le  jardin  year  by  year, 
[179] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

carried  out  as  they  are  in  bronze,  in  marble, 
in  terra-cotta,  or  simply  in  the  plaster  casts 
taken  from  the  original  clay  model. 

The  question  of  sentiment  combined  with 
portraiture  is  well  set  forth  in  the  famous 
and  really  important  relief  by  Dalou  (Plate 
LV),  in  which  is  recorded  the  resistance  of 
the  Tiers  Etat,  or  the  popular  branch  of 
the  States  General,  when  in  1789  it  was 
undertaken  by  the  court  to  snuff  them  out 
— them  and  their  attempts  at  universal  re- 
form— by  sending  workmen  to  break  up 
the  room  and  provide  for  some  fandango 
of  the  court.  It  was  the  23d  of  June,  and 
the  king  had  just  left  the  hall,  having 
issued  the  most  peremptory  command  that 
the  Three  Orders  of  the  States  General 
should  meet  separately,  each  in  its  own 
hall.  Meantime  the  workmen  had  already 
come  in  to  remove  the  benches.  The  Mar- 
quis de  Dreux-Breze,  who  was  then  master 
of  ceremonies,  came  in  and  asked  the  presi- 
dent if  he  had  not  heard  the  order  of  the 
king.  To  this  the  president,  Bailli,  an- 
swered that  he  had  no  power  to  disperse 
[180] 


Recent  Art,  Part  II,  Sentiment 

the  assembly  without  its  order.  Mirabeau, 
one  of  the  deputies,  came  to  the  front  of 
the  president’s  table  and,  speaking  directly 
to  the  master  of  ceremonies,  reminded  him 
that  he  had  no  right  of  speech  or  even  of 
presence  in  the  assembly,  and  that  his  or- 
ders could  not  be  listened  to.  This  epi- 
sode, one  of  the  most  important  and  re- 
markable in  modern  history  as  the  com- 
mencement of  the  world  of  modern  politics, 
the  breaking  down  of  privilege  and  the  in- 
stallation of  democracy,  is  rendered  here 
with  entire  fidelity  to  surroundings,  to  cos- 
tume, to  the  passions  and  interests  at  stake, 
and  even  to  fidelity  of  portraiture ; for 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  belief  com- 
monly held  among  artists  and  students  in 
France,  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  of  the  heads 
are  studies  carefully  made  from  the  still 
preserved  portraits  of  the  time. 


[181] 


CHAPTER  IX 

RECENT  ART,  PART  III,  MONUMENTAL  EFFECT 

It  is  said  elsewhere  that  there  is  often 
difficulty  in  distinguishing  between  sculp- 
ture of  sentiment  and  sculpture  of  monu- 
mental character.  In  this  chapter  we  con- 
sider those  productions  of  that  art  which 
are  used  and  presented  in  a monumental 
way,  without  any  attempt  to  exclude  from 
this  category  works  which  may  express 
sentiment  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the 
other  hand  may  be  chiefly  studies  of  sculp- 
turesque beauty  without  other  significance. 
Thus  in  the  famous  monument  by  Daniel 
C.  French,  in  The  Fenway  at  Boston,  Mas- 
sachusetts, and  erected  in  honor  of  John 
Boyle  O’Reilly  (Frontispiece),  there  is  in- 
deed a very  refined  and  subtile  feeling,  and 
also  a very  attractive  treatment  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  human  figure  in  easy  yet  cor- 
relative attitudes  : but  our  main  purpose 
must  be  here  to  consider  its  monumental 
value.  The  central  figure  is,  of  course, 
[182] 


PALAIS  BOURBON  (CHAMBER  OF  DEPUTIES). 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 


Hibernia,  and  on  the  right  of  this  em- 
bodied nationality  sits  a figure  suggesting 
the  Military  Courage  of  Paul  Dubois  (see 
Plate  XLIX),  and  standing  here  for  the  same 
or  a similar  quality,  for  O'Reilly  was  the 
soldier  by  choice  and  by  instinct,  and  did 
what  he  could  to  organize  military  action 
in  behalf  of  his  fatherland.  The  figure  on 
the  left  of  Hibernia  is  Poetry,  and  the  ges- 
ture, the  movement  of  the  right  arm  by 
which  a twig  of  leaves  is  offered  to  Hiber- 
nia that  she  may  twist  this  memorial  of 
the  poet  O'Reilly  in  her  crown  of  fame,  is 
often  and  rightly  praised.  The  sculptur- 
esque quality  of  the  group  is  probably  more 
marked  than  in  any  other  work  of  this 
sculptor.  And  here  it  may  be  well  to  re- 
mark upon  that  comparison  of  this  poet  in 
form  to  the  poet  in  verse — Longfellow — 
which  has  been  made  by  sincere  and  ad- 
miring friends  of  the  sculptor,  French. 
The  resemblance,  of  course,  is  in  the  sim- 
plicity and  homeliness  of  the  sentiment, 
expressed  on  the  one  hand  by  the  familiar 
verse,  on  the  other  hand  by  the  simply 
[183] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 


posed  figure  or  naturally  organized  group. 
The  sentiment  of  a Longfellow  poem  is  apt 
to  be  in  the  very  obvious  patriotism  of  the 
warrior,  the  every-day  virtue  of  the  work- 
man or  of  the  wife,  the  appeal  to  memories 
of  childhood,  the  association  of  humanity 
with  something  beyond  humanity.  Much 
in  the  same  way  do  the  conceptions  of 
French  manifest  themselves.  Gallaudet 
Teaching  the  Deaf  Mute,  the  Milmore 
tombstone,  with  the  winged  and  draped 
Death  arresting  the  chisel  of  the  young 
sculptor,  are  both  of  them  illustrations  of 
this  simplicity  of  aim  in  the  intellectual 
reach  of  these  sculptures.  But  there  is  in 
French’s  work  an  immeasurably  greater 
achievement  in  the  use  of  the  quality  of 
art  than  there  is  in  the  poems  of  Longfel- 
low. These  last  (the  poems)  are  disfigured 
by  solecisms  ; expressions  that  are  dragged 
in  for  the  sake  of  the  rhyme,  serious 
blunders  in  taste  and  in  form,  which  abso- 
lutely prevent  the  acceptance  of  these 
poems  as  of  very  high  rank  ; whereas  the 
technical  art  of  French  is  always  true  and 
[184] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

pure,  resorting  to  few  exceptionally  unfa- 
miliar devices,  achieving  its  results  in  a 
sufficiently  familiar  way,  but  still  achieving 
them  and  evidently  disappointing  no  one — 
neither  the  artist  nor  the  students  of  his 
work.  A comparison  with  Tennyson  would 
be  more  in  the  way,  one  would  think,  for 
the  musical  charm  of  the  poet  may  be 
matched  by  the  visible  rhythm  of  the 
sculptor ; while  neither  of  them  has,  as  it 
would  seem,  a supernal  message  to  deliver. 

In  comparison  with  this  is  to  be  named 
the  monument  to  the  Empress  Augusta  at 
Berlin  (Plate  LVI),  a grave  and  dignified 
work  by  H.  W.  F.  Schaper  with  an  emblematic 
subject  in  the  marble  bas-relief  let  into  the 
pedestal.  It  is  obvious  that  here  the  monu- 
mental impulse  carries  it  over  the  thought 
of  portraiture.  “ Flattery,”  as  Disraeli  is 
supposed  to  have  said,  “ is  important  in 
statesmanship,  and  wherever  it  is  used  for 
royalty  it  has  to  be  laid  on  with  a trowel.” 
Accordingly  we  do  not  ask  that  the  statue 
of  a beloved  empress  should  be  realistically 
truthful.  It  is  more  important  that  our 
[185] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

ideas  of  a pious,  helpful  and  stately  per- 
sonage be  embodied  in  the  work.  We  are 
reminded  of  the  positive  order  which  Na- 
poleon’s Chamberlain  sent  out  early  in  the 
days  of  the  First  Empire,  calling  the  atten- 
tion of  the  painters  of  the  day  to  the  neces- 
sity of  giving  an  important  military  bearing 
to  the  central  figure  in  their  compositions. 

For  there  are  two  main  considerations  in 
a monument  which  includes  representative 
sculpture.  There  is  the  dignity,  the  arch- 
itectonic disposition  of  the  whole  design,  as 
of  its  great  subdivisions ; and  there  is  the 
stately  character  which  must  of  necessity  be 
given  to  the  principal  figures.  The  first  of 
these  two  requirements  is  at  the  bottom  of 
what  would  otherwise  be  an  absurd — an  in- 
excusable— device,  the  use  of  the  high  ped- 
estal. In  the  subject  before  us  the  lower 
edge  of  the  white  marble  bas-relief  is  about 
six  feet  above  the  neighboring  surface  of 
the  pavement,  and  it  is  six  feet  more  to  the 
platform  upon  which  the  Empress  sits.  If, 
now,  we  should  look  at  the  portrait  statue 
with  something  like  the  same  angle  of  vi- 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

sion  with  which  we  would  approach  a living 
woman  seated  in  a chair  of  state  raised  a step 
or  two  above  the  floor  of  a throne-room  or 
the  like,  we  should  have  to  recede  from 
the  monument  for  such  a distance  that  the 
value  of  the  sculpture  could  no  longer  be 
appreciated  except  by  the  use  of  a power- 
ful field-glass.  Two  hundred  feet  horizon- 
tally away  from  the  statue  would  be  about 
the  distance  which  one  would  have  to  re- 
cede in  the  case  of  this  Berlin  monument. 
In  reality,  most  persons  (it  is  a matter  of 
daily  observation)  fail  to  see  a portrait 
statue  or  a symbolical  group,  when  raised 
in  this  way  upon  a pedestal.  They  fail  to 
see  it  as  it  really  is ; they  take  in  the  gen- 
eral outline  shown  in  light  against  darkness 
as  in  the  present  instance,  or  in  darkness 
against  bewildering  and  modifying  light,  as 
when  the  sky  forms  the  background ; or 
still  worse,  the  outline — that  is  to  say,  the 
separating  edge  between  the  statue  and  that 
against  which  it  is  relieved — disappears,  and 
the  subordinate  masses  of  the  sculpture  as- 
sume far  too  great  a proportional  emphasis. 

[187] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

The  fault  of  the  high  pedestal,  the  injury 
done  by  it  to  the  piece  of  sculpture  which  it 
supports  and  ought  to  set  off,  is  felt  most 
strongly  in  the  case  of  equestrian  statues. 
That  one  which  a wise  writer  said  was 
“ after  all  the  only  equestrian  statue  in  the 
world/’  the  Marcus  Aurelius  in  the  Cam- 
pidoglio,  stands  on  a pedestal  not  more,  cer- 
tainly, than  nine  feet  high,  and  the  horse 
and  man,  much  larger  than  life,  seem  near 
to  the  spectator.  But  note  what  the  Ro- 
mans of  modern  Rome  did  when  “ Italy  and 
Victor  Emmanuel  ” erected  a monument  to 
Garibaldi,  on  the  Janiculan  Hill.  If  there 
is  any  truth  in  proportion,  or  if  one  can 
scale  the  thing  at  all  by  a photograph  taken 
almost  exactly  in  elevation,  the  horse’s 
hoofs  are  thirty  feet  above  the  surrounding 
level,  and  that  means  that  the  thousands  of 
visitors  will  see  it  from  beneath  in  a way 
which  makes  the  belly  of  the  horse  and  the 
boot-soles  of  the  man  much  the  most  promi- 
nent objects,  while  horse  and  man  alike  are 
foreshortened  in  the  most  ungainly  of  all 
ways.  For  can  you  compel  spectators  to  go 
[188] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

away  five  hundred  feet  and  to  use  powerful 
field-glasses  ? Is  it  alleged  that  the  sculptor 
has  it  in  his  hands  to  model  his  group  for 
the  place  it  is  to  occupy  ? The  answering 
doubt  is  whether  it  is  possible  for  any 
sculptor  to  achieve  that  feat  when  the  con- 
tradiction between  the  natural  requirements 
of  the  student  and  the  natural  difficulties 
of  the  place  are  balanced  one  against  the 
other.  So  with  the  famous  monument  at 
Venice,  that  which  is  crowned  by  the  Col- 
leone  statue ; is  it  not  the  complaint  of 
every  one  who  visits  the  City  of  the  Lagoon 
that  the  pedestal  is  so  high  ? In  fact  this 
pedestal  was  a special  study,  a delight,  to 
the  artist  who  designed  it,  and  he  was  too 
busy  thinking  of  his  order,  of  the  delicately 
imagined  Corinthian  columns  of  Renais- 
sance type,  to  remember  what  he  was  doing 
to  the  statue  above.  For  indeed  the  Campo 
where  it  stands  is  very  small ! We  may, 
indeed,  cross  the  little  bridge  and  see  the 
statue  from  the  greater  distance,  directly  in 
front  of  the  rider,  but  for  any  other  point  of 
view  (and  that  is  not  the  best  point  of  view 
[189] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

for  the  equestrian  statue)  one  is  limited  to  the 
eighty  foot  retreat  which  is  practicable  on 
either  side.  It  does  not  appear  that  modern 
arrangements  are  much  more  intelligible, 
though  there  are  exceptions  to  the  bad  rule. 
Think  of  the  valuable  Thomas  equestrian 
statue  by  J.  Q.  A.  Ward,  at  Washington,  on 
the  high  pedestal,  which  in  its  turn  rises  from 
the  top  of  a sloping  mound  of  green,  which 
again  is  enclosed  by  a railing — a frank  noti- 
fication to  everybody  that  this  particular 
statue,  one  of  the  most  intelligently  designed 
of  modern  times,  is  intended  by  its  owner, 
the  Municipality  of  Washington,  to  be  a mere 
commonplace  of  public  magnificence — not  a 
work  of  art  which  we  are  to  see.  It  is  true 
that  this  keeping  of  the  spectator  at  a dis- 
tance of  120  feet  more  or  less,  is  a good  rule 
if  no  other  means  could  be  used  to  persuade 
the  spectator  that  it  could  only  be  seen, 
placed  as  it  is,  from  some  such  distance  as 
that ; but  it  is  the  frank  acceptance  of  the 
situation  that  one  complains  of — the  bold 
statement  that  the  equestrian  statue  has  no 
message  for  anybody  who  is  not  prepared  to 
[190] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

examine  it  through  a spy-glass.  This  fault 
is  wholly  avoided  in  the  case  of  the  Shaw 
Monument  on  Boston  Common.  That  re- 
markable production,  a huge  alto-relief,  is 
set  so  that  one  approaches  it  close,  the  Bea- 
con Street  sidewalk  leading  quite  up  to  the 
slight  terrace  upon  which  you  are  free  to 
stand  while  you  gaze  into  the  details  of  the 
bronze.  The  monumental  effect,  the  idea, 
the  bigness,  the  display  of  a long  and 
stately  inscription  intended  to  be  studied 
and  remembered,  is  all  relegated  to  the  side 
facing  the  Common,  where  the  ground  is 
many  feet  lower  and  where  there  are 
benches  from  which  you  can  study  the 
Latin  as  well  as  the  architectural  ordon- 
nance  at  your  leisure.  Robert  Gould  Shaw 
was  colonel  of  the  first  negro  regiment,  and 
was  killed  at  Fort  Wagner  while  leading  his 
troops.  He  is  shown  riding  beside  the  men 
of  his  command  (see  Plate  LVII)  and  the 
piece  has  been  greatly  in  the  public  eye  ever 
since  the  erection  of  the  monument  on 
Boston  Common.  There  must  arise,  of 
course,  the  gravest  inquiry  into  the  fitness 
[191] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  the  composition  for  an  alto-relief  on  a 
large  scale  set  up  in  the  most  prominent 
place,  and  forming  the  greatest  part  of  an 
important  and  prominent  monument.  For 
that  purpose  it  seems  to  many  persons  much 
too  familiar  and  off-hand  in  its  composition. 
It  is  too  much  like  a picture  in  a book ; 
that  is  to  say  it  is  not  merely  a painter’s 
rather  than  a sculptor’s  work,  but  it  is  even 
more  the  work  of  an  illustrator  than  of  a 
painter.  If  produced  in  a wood-cut  on  such 
a scale  that  it  would  go  easily  into  the  page 
of  an  octavo  it  would  be  more,  as  it  seems 
to  many  of  us,  in  its  true  place — the  design 
would  be — than  when  carried  out  in  this 
grandiose  form.  That  this  opinion  is  not 
universal  nor  even  a general  one,  is  evident 
enough,  nor  is  it  intended  to  insist  upon 
that  or  any  other  opinion  in  these  pages ; 
but  it  is  quite  obvious  that  we  must  make 
it  clear  that  such  an  opinion  exists  and  is 
held  by  the  most  ardent  lovers  of  sculpture. 
Like  the  Sherman  monument  by  the  same 
artist,  recently  set  up  in  New  York,  and 
which  there  has  been  hardly  time  as  yet  to 
[192] 


Copyright,  1897,  by  Augustus  St  Gaudens.  From  a Copley  print,  copyright,  1897,  by  Curtis  & Cameron,  publishers,  Boston. 

Plate  LVII. — RELIEF  FORMING  MEMORIAL  OF  ROBERT  GOULD  SHAW;  BY  AUGUSTUS  SAINT  GAUDENS 
(B.  1848);  ERECTED  IN  BOSTON  COMMON. 


Plate  LVIII. FONTAINE  MOLIERE,  PARIS:  STATUE  OF  MOLIERE,  BY  G.  B.  SEURRE 

(1795-1865);  SYMBOLICAL  STATUES  (COMEDIE  SERIEUSE,  COMEDIE  LEGERE); 
BY  JAMES  PRADIER  (1792-1852). 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

study  aright,  this  work  is  less  attractive, 
less  powerful,  less  valuable  as  a work  in 
pure  form  than  it  is  when  considered  from 
the  point  of  view  of  portraiture,  of  narrative, 
of  appeal  to  popular  sentiment.  But  the 
object  of  a great  and  important  work  of 
sculpture  is  and  must  be  very  largely  the 
presentation  of  pure  form  in  a new  and 
charming  aspect.  What  has  the  sculptor  to 
say  so  important  as  this  : “ Come  and  see 
this  new  combination  of  masses  beautifully 
composed,  made  up  of  details  beautifully 
modelled  ” ? 

Monumental  sculpture  is  not  often  as 
near  to  being  a work  of  pure  sentiment  as 
in  those  two  interesting  examples,  the 
O’Reilly  Monument  and  the  Shaw  Monu- 
ment. The  sculpture  of  modern  France 
which  is,  after  all,  the  field  in  which  we 
study  most  easily,  will  give  us  examples 
enough  of  that  truth.  Plate  LVIII  shows 
the  wall-fountain  which  serves  also  as  a 
monument  to  Moliere  ; standing  near  the 
great  theatre  which  we  consider  almost  as 
the  earthly  home  of  the  famous  dramatist. 

[193] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

This  work  was  designed  by  Visconti,  and 
there  are  two  admirable  symbolical  statues 
by  James  Pradier,  with  the  seated  one  of 
Moliere  by  Bernard  Gabriel  Seurre.  This 
is  the  finest  of  the  wall  fountains  of  modern 
times,  and  is  almost  a perfect  type  of  what 
we  should  be  aiming  at  for  the  adornment 
of  our  American  cities.  As  yet  no  one  has 
found  a way  to  appropriate  the  little  piece 
of  ground  necessary  for  the  basin  and  the 
architectural  mass,  nor  the  blank  wall 
against  which  it  is  to  be  set  up. 

In  Vienna  the  monument  to  the  Empress 
Maria  Theresia  (Plate  LIX),  the  work  of 
Kaspar  Zumbusch  and  Karl,  Freiherr  von 
Hasenauer,  was  not  completed  until  1888, 
and  yet  is  far  more  like  the  art  of  the 
languid  and  indifferent  age  which  came  to 
an  end  about  1850,  than  is  the  monument 
just  described,  which  dates  from  1845. 
There  are  four  equestrian  statues  of  four  of 
the  military  chiefs  of  the  reign,  and  be- 
tween them  four  standing  figures  of  the 
statesmen  of  the  time,  Kaunitz,  the  famous 
Chancellor,  in  the  middle  of  our  picture, 
[194] 


Plate  LIX. — MONUMENT  TO  THE  EMPRESS  MARIA  THERESIA,  QUEEN  OF  HUN- 
GARY AND  BOHEMIA,  IN  VIENNA,  AUSTRIA.  THE  SCULPTURE  BY  G.  C. 
ZUMBUSCH  (B.  1830). 


Plate  LX. — MONUMENT  TO  ADMIRAL  FARRAGUT,  MADISON  SQUARE,  NEW  YORK;  BY  AUGUSTUS  SAINT  GAUDENS 
(b.  1848). 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

with  the  collar  of  the  Order  of  the  Golden 
Fleece  on  his  breast  and  dressed  in  his 
official  robes  of  ceremony.  These  figures 
are  all  above  life-size,  and  the  seated 
statue  of  the  Empress  is  colossal.  There 
are,  moreover,  four  groups,  not  in  relief, 
but  rather  in  the  form  of  statues  relieved 
against  the  background  formed  by  the 
pedestal,  and  these  again  are  portrait  fig- 
ures of  the  military  and  civil  celebrities 
who  served  the  empress.  Moreover,  the 
pedestal  itself  is  not  ill  designed,  a good 
order,  well  proportioned,  and  the  manage- 
ment of  the  niches  between  the  coupled 
columns  more  than  usually  successful ; and 
yet  the  whole  thing  is  uninteresting  in  a 
very  surprising  way,  and  it  is  worth  any 
one’s  time  and  effort  to  discover  the  reason 
for  this  comparative  failure.  As  we  look 
at  the  single  statue  of  Kaunitz  it  will  prob- 
ably seem  to  most  of  us  that  it  is  a masterly 
portrait  statue,  and  again  the  huge  figure 
of  the  Empress  is  well  composed,  and  if  we 
must  have  colossal  statues  high  above  the 
eye,  this  is  the  way  which  suggests  itself  as 
L 195  J 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

the  most  natural  to  carry  out  that  scheme. 
Neither  is  it  quite  sufficient  to  urge  the 
difference  in  scale  between  the  portrait 
figures  below,  the  Empress  above,  and  the 
intermediary  Virtues  which  form  pinnacles 
as  it  were,  to  the  central,  spire-like  mass; 
for  this  contrast  is  not  enough  to  account 
for  the  feebleness  of  the  whole.  The  monu- 
ments of  antiquity  and  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  some  of  those  of  modern  times,  go  to 
prove  the  contrary — to  prove  that  you  may 
set  up  little  figures  alongside  of  large  ones 
and  make  a design  thereby.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  undertake  an  elaborate  criti- 
cism of  the  monument  in  question  ; and  it 
is  offered  here  as  an  excellent  example  of  the 
learning,  labor  and  good  will  of  modern  times 
going  astray — as  they  have  done  so  often. 

A strange  contrast  to  this  is  in  the  sculp- 
tures of  the  pedestal  (Plate  LX)  which,  by 
the  architects  McKim,  Mead  & White,  and 
the  sculptor  Augustus  Saint  Gaudens,  was 
carved  and  set  up  to  support  the  bronze 
statue  of  Admiral  Farragut.  Those  splendid 
figures  of  Patriotism  and  Courage  are  treated 
[196] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

in  an  absolutely  decorative  way,  that  is  to 
say,  combined  with  sculptured  lines  carved 
in  stone  and  suggesting  obviously  the  sweep 
of  the  ocean,  the  officer’s  sword,  and  even 
the  lettering  needed  to  express  the  thought 
in  which  the  monument  was  erected.  The 
statue  itself  is,  of  course,  a part  of  the  com- 
position, and  we  will  not  judge  the  exedra 
as  if  it  had  not  a statue  to  support ; and 
yet  it  seems  unnecessary  to  insist  upon  the 
statue  at  this  moment.  It  is  a very  noble  por- 
trait, singularly  simple  and  direct  in  design. 

Plate  LXI  is  another  work  less  happy 
in  its  composition  but  equally  representa- 
tive of  the  slowly  forming  modern  system 
of  design.  The  work  is  not  classical  nor 
even  pseudo-classical  of  any  school  ; al- 
though the  heavy  stone  masses  and  the 
somewhat  awkward  bronze  festoons  of  the 
pedestal  call  up  a memory  of  the  later  years 
of  the  seventeenth  century  : that  is  of  no 
consequence  ; what  is  valuable  about  the 
fountain  both  as  an  independent  work  of 
art  and  as  a landmark  in  our  slow  progress, 
is  the  daring  treatment  of  the  red  Indians, 
[197] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

both  men  and  maidens.  It  is  not  necessary 
to  reckon  with  the  bronze  stag  which  serves 
as  the  finial ; but  the  four  Indian  girls  who 
surround  the  great  central  shaft  of  the  foun- 
tain are  extremely  well  placed  as  decorative 
figures  and  are  interesting  as  racial  studies, 
and  the  men — the  Indian  braves — mounted 
upon  the  four  pedestals  on  the  edge  of  the 
basin,  while  faulty  enough  in  their  exag- 
gerated realistic  attitudes  and  in  this  way 
helping  little  the  reposeful  character  which 
a monumental  fountain  should  have,  are 
yet  individually  attractive  studies  of  the 
type.  The  Indian  spearing  fish,  the  Indian 
raising  the  left  hand  in  friendship  or  in 
desire  of  a parley,  the  Indian  with  bow  and 
arrow,  and  the  Indian  striking  with  the 
tomahawk,  are  a shade  too  ethnographical 
— not  quite  subdued  to  the  artistic  purpose 
of  their  share  of  the  monument,  but  in 
themselves  they  are  of  importance. 

Considering  now  the  very  few  works  of 
associated  sculpture  in  the  adornment  of 
large,  prominent  and  utilitarian  buildings, 
we  have  to  note  that  the  influences  upon 
[198] 


Plate  LXI. — CORNING  FOUNTAIN  AT  HARTFORD,  CONNECTICUT;  BY  J.  MASSEY 
RHIND  (B.  1853). 


.Plate  LXII. — STATUE,  ATHLETE  AND  SERPENT;  BY  SIR  FREDERICK  LEIGHTON, 
AFTERWARDS  LORD  LEIGHTON  (183O-I896). 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 


architect  and  sculptor  are  in  our  own  times 
contradictory  and  irreconcilable.  More- 
over, this  has  been  the  case  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  revived  interest  in  decora- 
tive architecture  at  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  On  the  one  hand  the  sculp- 
ture of  the  European  Middle  Ages  with  its 
astonishing  fitness  for  its  place,  its  adapta- 
bility, its  unique  and  unmatched  effective- 
ness as  a part  of  the  ornamental  structure — 
on  the  other  hand  the  sculpture  of  antiquity 
with  its  superior  beauty  and  perfection 
when  considered  merely  as  sculpture — these 
two  evident  triumphs  of  art  have  attracted 
those  minds  which  are  the  most  trained  to 
receive  beauty,  and,  according  to  the  occa- 
sion, those  artists  and  employers  who  are 
in  a position  to  utilize  it. 

There  is  still  a third  course  which  we 
may  pursue  if  we  will,  and  this  is  laid  out 
for  us  by  the  only  race  of  architectural 
artists  who  in  the  modern  world  employ 
sculpture  on  a grand  scale  and  continually. 
Their  plan  is  to  erect  their  great  building, 
and  to  put  up  on  pedestals  ranged  along  its 
[199] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

front,  statues — some  greater  than  life-size, 
and  groups  perhaps  on  a still  larger  scale  ; 
with  occasionally  figures  in  metal  at  the 
crests  or  at  the  points  of  the  roof.  These 
statues  may  be  portraits,  ideal  portraits,  or 
embodiments  of  virtues  and  qualities. 
These  groups  may  be  expressive  of  the  ob- 
ject of  the  building,  or  generally  of  the 
epoch  and  the  political  situation.  In  either 
case  they  are  not  architectural  sculpture  in 
any  accurate  sense  of  the  word.  In  this 
the  example  of  the  Greeks  has  been,  per- 
haps, too  powerful ; and  because  the  sculp- 
tures of  the  Parthenon  might  have  been 
taken  down  and  others  put  up  without  dis- 
turbing the  ordonnance  of  the  building  at 
all — as  the  Parthenon  would  still  have 
been  the  Parthenon  without  the  sculptures 
of  the  pediments  or  with  entirely  differ- 
ent groups  there — it  is  inferred  that  the 
statuary  may  or  may  not  be  put  in  place  on 
a modern  Paris  structure.  It  is  a good 
place  to  show  off  the  statue — though  this 
may  also  be  disputed  in  view  of  the  height 
of  that  statue  above  the  pavement ; but  ex- 
[200] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

cept  for  this  the  building  does  not  need 
sculpture,  which,  indeed,  forms  no  part  of 
it.  At  most  it  may  be  said  that  the  front 
of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  needs  its  statuary  as  a 
mantelpiece  in  a drawing  room  needs  its 
Sevres  vases  with  a clock  between  them ; 
and  yet  we  do  not  consider  that  the  mantel’ 
piece  needs  its  garniture  de  cheminee  in 
order  to  be  a complete  mantelpiece. 

Evidently  there  is  much  excuse  for  this 
way  of  regarding  the  sculpture  connected 
with  a monument — an  excuse  which  draws 
its  strength  from  the  example  of  the  all 
powerful  artists  of  antiquity.  Greece  and 
Rome  did  nearly  this  same  thing.  The 
Renaissance  and  the  years  immediately  fol- 
lowing saw  the  development  of  a more  in- 
telligent use  of  sculpture  in  connection  with 
buildings.  It  was  not  pushed  very  far ; 
sculpture  was  still  mainly  for  tombs  and  for 
isolated  statues  through  those  great  artistic 
years,  1400  to  1500,  as  set  forth  in  another 
part  of  this  book.  But  still  the  attempt  to 
employ  sculpture  on  the  building  itself  re- 
mains a continual  effort,  a constant  aspira- 
[201] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

tion,  an  ideal  standard  of  excellence ; and 
in  such  buildings  as  the  Library  of  St. 
Mark  (begun  1536)  this  is  carried  out  in  a 
very  perfect  way,  though  without  much 
elaboration  (see  Chapter  VI).  Since  that 
time  the  placed  statue  has  held  control,  and 
of  all  ways  of  placing  it  certainly  the  least 
successful  is  that  which  was  taken  up  and 
approved  by  all  Italy  for  a century — the 
setting  of  isolated  statues  upon  the  cornice, 
sharp  against  the  sky.  Of  course,  if  you 
are  not  considering  the  beauty  of  the  sculp- 
ture you  may  do  this  with  freedom  and 
may  improve  your  building  by  the  upright 
figures  rising  in  the  clear  air,  which  again 
seems  to  fill  the  space  between  them  and 
produce  a beautiful  pattern  of  a simple  sort 
— that  effect  we  are  accustomed  to  in  battle- 
ments, in  pierced  parapets,  in  balustrades  of 
all  sorts.  It  is,  however,  a poor  way  to  treat 
your  costly  sculpture  of  human  subject,  be- 
cause of  the  brilliancy  of  the  sky,  which  is 
really  the  poorest  background  that  sculp- 
ture can  have.  So  in  America  the  statues 
by  J.  Massey  Rhind  are  fortunate  in  that 
[202] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

they  stand  on  the  entablature  at  the  top  of 
the  ground  story  and  are  relieved  against 
the  second  story  wall  of  the  Surety  Build- 
ing in  New  York  and  of  the  Exchange 
Court  Building,  a few  streets  further  south. 
The  unlucky  white  marble  palace  on 
Madison  Square  in  New  York,  the  home  of 
the  Appellate  Division  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  presents  sculpture  in  the  round  and 
raised  high  against  the  firmament ; but 
this  building  is  indeed  unfortunate,  for 
even  that  sculpture  which  is  displayed  with 
the  attic  wall  as  a background,  arranged 
upon  the  frontons  of  the  great  windows, 
and  resting  upon  the  ramps  of  the  entrance 
doorway,  is  ill  placed. 

Far  more  agreeable  is  it  to  note  those 
buildings  which  have  been  treated  in  a 
masterful  way,  first  with  sculpture  subdued 
and  restrained  to  the  condition  of  the 
mediaeval  style  ; second,  with  the  sculpture 
treated  indeed,  as  forming  a part  of  the 
building,  and  yet  so  modelled  with  the  full 
swing  of  the  studio-taught  artist’s  inde- 
pendent conceptions,  filled  with  his  ana- 
[ 203  ] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

tomical  knowledge  and  designed  according 
to  the  considerations  of  his  education  and 
his  surroundings,  and  therefore  hardly 
architectural  in  character.  For  it  must  be 
noted  that  in  a time  when  there  is  very  lit- 
tle architectural  sculpture,  the  conditions 
of  architectural  sculpture  are,  of  course, 
largely  ignored  and  misunderstood.  Is  it 
supposable  that  even  the  most  intelligent 
man,  even  the  most  highly  trained  and 
most  nobly  ambitious  sculptor,  can  foresee 
the  effect  of  his  work  once  the  last  scaffold- 
ing is  down  and  the  sunshine  streaming 
upon  it?  Where  has  he,  where  can  he 
have  had,  the  experience  to  set  him  right  ? 
The  existing  architectural  sculpture  which 
he  may  look  at  with  a little  respect,  is  either 
that  of  a declared  revival  of  a now  less 
esteemed  style  (that  is  to  say,  of  the  Gothic 
revival  of  1850  to  1875),  or  else  it  is  the 
single  daring  attempt,  like  that  which  he 
has  undertaken  for  himself, — the  belt  of 
figures  on  the  Campanile  of  the  Brattle 
Street  Church  in  Boston,  or  the  portrait 
and  ideal  heads  wrought  into  the  capitals 
[ 204  ] 


Recent  Art,  Part  III,  Monumental  Effect 

of  the great  State  House  at  Albany.  Ac- 
cordingly we  are  to  look  for  sculpture  too 
little  studied  for  itself,  in  the  strictly  faith- 
ful architectural  setting  forth  of  certain 
Romanesque  church  porches  and  church 
towers  : we  are  to  look  for  much  excellence 
in  sculpture  but  far  too  little  decorative 
consideration,  in  the  bold  friezes  and  groups 
of  sculptors  who  do  not  propose  to  be 
hampered  by  their  surroundings.  Those  are 
the  handicaps.  Neither  one  nor  the  other 
class  of  sculptors  can  avoid  their  fate.  The 
hindrance  is  on  them  and  on  all,  the  abso- 
lute authority  of  the  mediocre.  We  do  not 
know  which  way  to  turn  when  we  want 
architectural  sculpture,  and  when  we  try 
we  are  not  to  be  surprised  by  the  partial 
failure  of  our  efforts,— for  partial  failure  was 
foreordained,  and  we  are  fortunate  to 
secure  even  partial  success. 

It  appears  that  there  is  still  open  to  mod- 
ern designers  a decorative  combination  in 
which  the  sculpture  shall  control  the 
scheme,— shall  be  decidedly  the  most  im- 
portant thing.  In  a realistic  modern  way 
[205] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

without  much  reference  to  tradition  of  any 
kind,  the  Farragut  monument  (Plate  LX) 
excells.  In  a more  traditional  way,  and  on 
lines  laid  down  by  the  French  Renaissance 
three  and  a half  centuries  ago,  a monument 
already  named  is  a sufficient  example : let 
us  consider  it  a little  farther. 

The  work  of  Paul  Dubois  attracts  us 
greatly  by  its  exquisite  modelling : his  Eve 
entering  on  Life  ( Eve  Naissante ) is  a nude 
statue  of  unsurpassed  merit  in  this  respect, 
among  moderns.  The  same  sculptor  has 
produced  the  statues  of  the  tomb  of  La 
Moriciere  at  Nantes,  already  named  (see 
Plate  XLIX)  placing  four  allegorical  figures 
at  the  four  corners,  and  the  recumbent 
statue  of  the  dead  man,  covered  with  the 
pall,  upon  the  marble  bier.  This  is  shaded 
by  a canopy  of  delicate  Renaissance  archi- 
tecture, of  which  the  design  is  helped  by 
the  sculpture.  No  modern  piece  of  com- 
bined sculpture  and  architecture  surpasses 
this  : nor  can  we  point  to  a more  fit  and 
perfect  way  of  placing  and  using  the  best 
sculpture  the  age  can  produce. 

[206] 


CHAPTER  X 


RECENT  ART  COMPARED  WITH  GREEK 
STANDARD 

In  Chapters  I and  II  there  is  discussion 
of  those  works  of  sculpture  which  are  un- 
questionably of  the  best  epoch  of  Greek  art ; 
and  furthermore  of  those  which,  without 
being  accurately  dated,  have  the  character- 
istics of  the  best  epoch.  It  is  pointed  out 
that  these  classical  sculptures  constitute  our 
general  standard  of  excellence  in  sculpture 
considered  by  itself — not  as  allied  with 
architecture — not  as  a part  of  a decorative 
scheme.  In  Chapter  III  the  inquiry  is 
carried  a little  farther,  so  as  to  include  those 
sculptures  in  which  the  Greek  tradition  was 
strong,  while  yet  the  Roman  control  made 
for  a large  field  and  wider  sympathies, 
though  at  the  cost  of  technical  merit  and 
of  the  artistical  charm  which  goes  with  it. 

This,  morever,  is  our  theme  in  this  essay  : 
sculpture  for  itself,  sculpture  for  sculpture’s 
sake.  The  decorative  side  of  sculpture,  with 
[ 207] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

all  its  far-reaching  alliances  with  the  material 
used,  with  the  surroundings  and  with  the 
exact  placing  of  every  piece  of  pure  form 
among  masses,  small  or  large,  of  compara- 
tively unorganized  parts  : all  that  is  out  of 
our  reach  at  present.  Some  slight  allusion 
to  monumental  effects,  and  even  the  naming 
of  architecture  in  connection  with  sculp- 
ture has  been  inevitable : but  that  is 
merely  because  so  much  great  thought  has 
been  bestowed  upon  sculpture  so  allied ; 
some  epochs  knowing  no  other  grand  sculp- 
ture than  that  applied  to  building. 

Let  us  now  continue  the  examination  of 
pure  sculpture,  and  consider  in  the  present 
chapter  the  relations  of  classical  art  to  that 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  may  be  well 
to  compare  separate  works  piece  by  piece ; 
but  it  is  also  well  to  note  what  are  those 
special  peculiarities  of  classical  work  which 
the  modern  world  accepts  as  giving  that 
whole  body  of  sculpture  a rank  attained  by 
the  sculpture  of  no  other  period. 

When  the  well  known  Castellani  Collec- 
tion was  brought  to  New  York,  about  1875, 
[208  ] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

while  one  amateur  desired  to  see  the 
beautiful  majolica  bought  for  some  Ameri- 
can museum,  while  another  longed  to  see 
the  engraved  gems  kept  together  and 
preserved  for  the  United  States,  and  while 
these  two  departments  attracted  much  the 
most  general  attention  (being,  as  they  were, 
very  splendid  and  rich)  it  was  noticeable 
that  artists  of  the  more  thoughtful  and 
better  informed  class,  painters  and  archi- 
tects as  well  as  sculptors,  were  attracted  by 
the  marbles  of  the  collection,  although 
much  broken  and  defaced,  and  although 
no  famous  pieces  were  among  them.  They 
were  not  of  first-rate  quality  ; but  they  were 
antique.  There  was  not  one  piece  which 
could  be  mistaken  for  a Greek  original  of 
the  time  of  Phidias,  of  the  time  of  Praxi- 
teles or  of  the  Alexandrian  period.  The 
artists  who  most  craved  their  permanent 
possession  for  the  citizens  of  New  York  saw 
in  them  merely  a record  of  ancient  meth- 
ods in  studying  and  modelling  the  nude 
figure,  and  in  dressing  the  marble.  They 
called  one  another’s  attention  to  the  fact 
[209  ] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

that,  even  in  confessedly  inferior  relics  of 
a great  time,  there  was  something  visible 
of  that  secret  which  the  Greek  artists  and 
their  imitators  had  preserved,  until  the  col- 
lapse of  the  Roman  imperial  system  with 
its  Grecian  proclivities.  Here  in  these 
marbles,  it  was  boldly  said,  there  was  fine 
modelling — such  modelling  as  was  hardly 
used  by  the  men  of  the  Risorgimento 
(though  they  had  the  secret  of  a special 
charm  of  their  own) — such  as  was  not  at- 
tained by  the  men  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries — such  handling  as  had 
been  extremely  rare  in  the  second  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  These  second- 
rate  antiques  were  asked  for  eagerly,  then, 
that  they  might  influence  for  the  better  the 
technique  of  modern  work.  The  degrees  of 
merit  are  so  hard  to  fix  and  to  limit : and 
yet  they  exist ! The  Theseus  of  the  Par- 
thenon or  the  Hermes  of  Olympia  may  be 
in  our  highest  class ; the  “ Antinous  ” of  the 
Vatican  (Plate  VIII)  may  come  in  the  next 
rank,  and  the  Germanicus  (Plate  XII)  in 
the  third.  There  is  no  limit  at  all  to  these 
[210] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

gradations ; “no  chess-player  so  good  that 
he  won’t  find  some  one  who  can  give  him  a 
castle,”  but  the  chess-player  has  the  decid- 
ing test  of  check-mate,  a test  which  we  can- 
not apply  in  matters  of  Fine  Art.  Some 
of  the  Ca»tellani  pieces  may  have  been  as 
fine  in  quality  as  the  Germanicus  : others 
were  assuredly  altogether  inferior  : but  the 
collection  together  might  have  helped  our 
sculptors  greatly. 

The  present  writer,  going  to  Paris  to  the 
exhibition  of  1878,  was  so  fortunate  as  to 
meet  on  the  first  day  of  his  arrival  an 
American  sculptor,  now  known  as  of  the 
first  rank,  then  a young  man  and  building 
up  in  Paris  the  edifice  of  his  great  fame  ; 
and  the  question  passed,  What  pieces  of 
sculpture  in  the  exhibition  should  one  look 
at,  if  he  desired  to  see  first-rate  modelling? 
Who  is  there,  of  living  men,  who  can  show 
me  something  of  the  ancient  thoroughness  ? 
“ Never  mind  the  subject,  or  the  purpose, 
or  the  size  and  dignity,  or  the  skill  in  com- 
position ; what  have  you  noticed  during 
the  two  months  since  the  exhibition  opened 
[211] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

which  is  supremely  fine  in  modelling?” 
The  question  was  answered  in  a satisfac- 
tory way,  and  the  circumstances  of  the 
answer  involved  the  recognition  of  one 
great  sculptor’s  greatness.  For,  while  a 
sculptor  might  be  identified  as  a master 
of  subtile  form  in  the  trunk  and  limbs,  the 
shoulders,  the  ankles  and  wrists,  the  cheek 
and  brow — -and  yet  as  feeble  in  posing  his 
figures  or  in  grouping  several  figures  to- 
gether, it  is  noticeable  that  we  do  not  often 
find  such  weakness  allied  to  such  strength. 

And  yet  there  are  those  two  forms  of 
excellence  in  modelling,  and  a piece  of 
work  may  greatly  excel  in  one  way  and 
be  far  less  strong  in  another.  Let  another 
true  story  illustrate  that  truth : A cele- 

brated American  painter  being  in  Paris 
about  1890,  was  asked  by  an  American 
sculptor  there  how  he  approved  a certain 
elaborate  composition  of  many  figures — the 
work  of  the  inquiring  sculptor.  The  an- 
swer made  by  this  painter  was  that  he,  the 
speaker,  had  had  recently  many  opportuni- 
ties of  studying  the  nude  among  whole 
[212] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

races  of  people  who  lived  habitually  un- 
clothed or  nearly  so — whose  daily  occupa- 
tions in  a warm  climate  made  clothing  a 
superfluity  : and  that  with  this  gained  in- 
sight he  could  state  rather  boldly  that  hu- 
man beings  actively  employed,  in  vigorous 
action,  a number  of  them  together,  posed 
and  moved  and  passed  from  one  attitude  to 
another  in  a very  different  way  from  what 
they  would  do  were  they  still  or  moving 
gently,  and  were  each  person  alone.  More- 
over, it  appeared  that  the  body  would  be 
greatly  swayed  by  its  own  action  upon  a 
very  heavy  implement : the  rower  with  a 
sweep  would  not  hold  himself  like  the 
rower  with  a light  pair  of  sculls.  “ In  short, 
your  figures  seem  to  me  as  if  you  had 
posed  one  at  a time,  and  not  as  if  you  had 
imagined  the  group  in  action.’'  This  was 
obviously  meant  as  hypercriticism,  that  is, 
as  remote  and  refined  analysis,  seeking  for 
the  most  perfect  achievement  in  art,  and 
ready  to  recognize  that  achievement  as  well 
as  the  lack  of  it.  Of  course  your  figures 
are  good  (so  runs  the  dictum ),  but  still  they, 
[213] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

as  a group,  lack  one  element  of  greatness. 
The  sculptor’s  answer  to  this  criticism  was, 
in  effect,  “We  are  not  trying,  nowadays,  in 
Paris,  to  do  the  pose  and  the  effect  of  action 
so  much  : what  we  are  trying  now  to  do  is 
le  morceau ” That  expression  meant,  of 
course,  that  for  the  time  being  the  Parisian 
influence  upon  the  younger  men  was  tak- 
ing them  towards  the  careful  study  of 
wrist  and  hand,  leg  and  foot,  cheek  and 
jaw,  temple  and  ear,  the  articulation  of  the 
knee  joint,  the  setting  on  of  the  arm  at  the 
shoulder  : and  all  this  for  its  own  sake,  as 
beautiful  in  form,  not  as  expressing  life  by 
seeming  movement. 

Even  the  modelling  of  le  morceau  allows 
of  two  interpretations.  One  artist  may  be 
more  interested  in  the  exact  expression  of 
those  facts  of  nature  which  are  beautiful 
in  themselves,  in  good  examples,  and  are 
of  the  highest  degree  beautiful  in  an  artis- 
tic sense — those  facts  which  have  to  do 
with  structure  primarily,  the  joints,  the  set- 
ting on  of  limbs,  the  action  of  the  fingers  in 
holding  an  object,  the  grip  of  the  toes  upon 
[214] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

the  ground  when  a strong  effort  is  made  by 
the  whole  body,  the  pose  of  the  head  in 
this  and  in  that  movement  of  the  whole 
frame.  Another  may  care  more  about  the 
mtylats,  that  is  to  say,  the  slightly  rounded, 
partly  flattened,  subtile  and  indescribably 
delicate  modulation  of  the  cheek  in  youth, 
of  the  upper  arm  in  a well  developed  man, 
of  that  strange  and  almost  unseizable  pas- 
sage from  shoulder  to  neck  on  either  side. 
The  famous  recumbent  statue  of  the  Par- 
thenon Pediment,  the  Ilissos,  the  headless 
one  in  the  British  Museum  (see  Plate  IV),  is 
famous  among  students  of  art  for  the  hol- 
low on  the  under  side  of  the  right  thigh, 
where,  as  the  right  knee  is  raised  slightly, 
the  great  muscles  of  the  thigh  relax,  and  a 
curious  soft  and  yet  firm  condition  of  those 
muscles  is  made  visible.  That  was  pointed 
out  by  our  teachers  of  drawing,  a half-cen- 
tury ago ; it  is  a commonplace : but  the 
similar  relaxing  of  the  walls  of  the  abdomen 
is  as  remarkable,  only  not  so  easy  to  re- 
mark. Indeed,  analysis  need  never  stop  : 
body  and  limbs,  that  marvellous  statue  is 
[215] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

one  and  not  many  parts ; a fautless  ex- 
pression of  repose.  This  is  an  achieve- 
ment indeed ; and  the  point  to  consider  is 
that  it  involves  the  modelling  of  le  morceau 
in  both  of  the  senses  in  which  the  expres- 
sion may  be  used,  as  just  now  stated.  Do 
you  care  for  subtile  gradations  of  surface? 
Do  you  care  for  artistic  expression  of  im- 
portant natural  facts  ? In  either  case  you 
are  suited  here,  your  demands  are  met  in  a 
satisfactory  way. 

Another  artist  will  care  more  for  pose  and 
for  the  expression  of  action.  Let  it  not  be 
assumed  that  he  disregards  the  details ; 
indeed  he  cannot  complete  his  expression  of 
the  human  body  in  action  without  attend- 
ing to  the  details.  The  statue  modelled  by 
the  English  painter,  Lord  Leighton,  and 
exhibited  in  1877,  represents  a vigorous 
man  strangling  a python  who  is  trying  to 
crush  him  in  its  folds ; and  everything 
here  may  be  thought  to  be  sacrificed  to  the 
expression  of  violent  effort  resulting  in  no 
rapid  movement,  but  in  the  great  exertion 
of  strength  in  other  muscles  than  those  of 
[216] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

locomotion.  This  is  expressed  finally  in  the 
pose  of  the  figure  (see  Plate  LXII) ; but  the 
very  matter  alluded  to,  the  grip  of  the  toes 
upon  the  ground  and  of  the  fingers  on  the 
serpent,  is  as  important  to  the  expression 
required  as  is  the  attitude  of  the  whole 
body  ; and  therefore  both  have  been  con- 
sidered equally.  Still,  in  any  such  piece  of 
work,  the  artist  will  think  first  of  the  pose 
of  the  whole  body.  If  his  figure  is  repre- 
sented as  in  motion,  the  very  first  thing  to 
do  is  to  make  it  steady  on  its  legs,  well 
poised,  so  swaying  with  the  action  of  walk- 
ing or  running  that  the  momentary  attitude, 
the  very  position  given  to  the  block  of 
hard  material,  shall  be  that  of  the  man  in 
the  momentary  pause  between  two  of  his 
strides.  This  figure  by  Leighton  is  “ aca- 
demic,” completely  so, — the  very  idea  of  a 
school  piece,  but  see  how  much  the  aca- 
demic teaching  can  give  ! One  of  the  wisest 
of  living  artists  says  of  the  mighty 
Rodin  that  he  needs,  terribly,  a year  of  the 
Ecole. 

In  the  group  “ Au  But  ” (see  Plate 
[217] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

XXXV)  the  attempt  is,  of  course,  to  give 
the  idea  of  very  rapid  motion,  of  headlong 
running  with  the  goal  close  in  view  and 
each  one  of  the  three  runners  striving  to 
reach  it  first.  Obviously  the  chief  thing  at- 
tempted is  the  expression,  in  each  figure,  of 
such  hold  upon  the  ground  and  of  such 
balanced  action,  one  foot  upon  the  ground 
during  the  instant  between  two  great  leaps, 
that  the  idea  of  rapid  running  shall 
be  given,  while  still  nothing  hopelessly  un- 
graceful results.  The  muscles  of  every  part 
of  the  body  are  affected,  in  reality,  by  such 
action  as  this,  or  it  would  be  more  accurate 
to  say  that  they  effect  such  motion ; every 
muscle,  as  it  were,  joining  in  the  combined 
effort  made  by  the  whole  form : and  this 
action  has  to  be  expressed  in  the  modelling 
of  the  surface,  even  in  its  smallest  part ; 
for  the  chief  thing  that  the  artist  has  cared 
about  is  that  his  figures  shall  express  the 
idea  of  triumphantly  swift  movement  in 
running. 

Now,  in  antiquity  such  motives  for 
statues  or  groups  were  uncommon,  and  yet 
[218] 


Plate  LXIII. — STATUE,  CALLED  the  borghese  gladiator,  louvre  museum. 


Plate  LXIV. — broken  statue,  called  torso  of  the  belvedere,  Vatican  museum. 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

we  might  compare  with  the  group  by  Mr. 
Boucher  the  famous  statue  in  the  Louvre 
(Plate  LXIII),  called  formerly  the  Borghese 
Gladiator,  but  now  admitted  to  be  the 
image  of  a Greek  engaged  in  a march  or 
charge  or  combat,  carrying  on  his  left  arm 
a heavy  shield.  If  the  right  arm,  which 
was  never  found  and  has  been  replaced  by  a 
modern  restoration,  supported  the  long 
spear,  then  these  would  be  the  arms  of  the 
Hoplite,  or  heavy-armed  Greek  foot-soldier  ; 
and  why  should  not  the  statue  represent  the 
Pyrrhicha — that  ceremonial  parade  which 
we  often  call  the  “ Pyrrhic  Dance  ” ? The 
piece  has  been  variously  ascribed  to  the 
pre-Phidian  epoch,  and  to  a post-Phidian 
epoch,  even  to  a late  one,  as  to  the  Rhodian 
school ; and  the  probability  is  that  it  is 
nearly  contemporary  with  the  Aphrodite  of 
Melos  and  the  Belvedere  Torso ; but  the 
noticeable  thing  about  it  is  that  the  artist 
has  used  the  action  of  the  swiftly  moving 
man  carrying  a considerable  weight  on  his 
arm,  merely  to  give  him  a pose  which  he,  the 
sculptor,  has  enjoyed — which  as  the  modeller 
[219] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

of  the  body  he  had  found  new  and  delightful : 
and  that  he  has  hardly  tried  to  express  the 
idea  of  rapid  movement  at  all.  The  very 
fact  that  the  statue  was  called  by  modern 
sculptors  and  museum-authorities  a gladia- 
tor, and  that  the  assumed  position  was  that  of 
the  fighter  guarding  his  head  with  a round 
buckler  while  he  prepares  a cut  with  his 
armed  right  hand — that  fact  seems  to  point 
to  an  admitted  lack  of  positively  determined 
pose,  and  if  you  choose  you  may  retain  the 
old  belief  that  the  figure  did  represent  a 
combatant,  and  you  may  dismiss  the  idea  of 
his  being  engaged  in  a march.  The  fact  that 
the  pose  does  not  express  either  one  or  the 
other  condition  in  a positive  way,  seems 
especially  the  point.  No  one  could  doubt 
the  significance  of  the  modern  group : and 
all  that  is  left  for  the  student  to  do  is  to 
study  the  pose  of  each  figure  and  the 
modelling  of  each  limb  and  of  the  torso 
of  each,  with  a view  of  seeing  how  far  they 
bear  critical  examination  as  expressing  this 
action  which  is  evidently  intended. 

Now  note  another  side  of  the  sculpture  of 
[220] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

antiquity.  We  may  examine  some  of  those 
Hellenistic  reliefs  which,  not  easy  to  date 
with  accuracy,  are  to  be  taken  as  of  the 
time  between  the  conquests  of  Alexander 
the  Great,  about  325  b.  c.,  and  the  sub- 
jugation of  the  Greeks  by  the  Romans  two 
hundred  years  later. 

There  are  many  Hellenistic  reliefs  in 
marble  which  may  be  considered  together 
with  modern  genre  paintings  ; and  which 
demonstrate  the  free  and  easy  way  of  deal- 
ing with  natural  forms  which  the  sculptor 
even  of  a great  time  will  allow  himself 
when  he  is  not  on  his  best  behavior.  There 
is  a little  of  everything  : in  one  of  these  in 
the  Lateran  Museum  we  have  a child  drink- 
ing, with  admirably  suggested  action,  from 
an  enormous  drinking  horn  which  a 
smiling  maid  tilts  to  his  lips ; a small  satyr 
with  Pan-pipes,  and  a goatskin  on  his 
shoulders ; an  eagle  on  the  rock  above 
tearing  his  prey  ; a serpent  winding  his 
way  up  a tree  towards  a nest  full  of  uncon- 
scious little  birds,  while  the  father  and 
mother  of  the  brood  are  perched  on  the 
[221] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

limbs  beyond  and  seem  to  plan  resistance  ; 
and  all  this  combined  with  a tree-growth 
and  a setting-on  of  foliage  which  has 
certainly  no  close  reference  to  nature  at  all. 
The  piece  has  no  great  merit  as  a work  of 
thought,  nor  any  vast  importance  as  a dec- 
orative design,  moreover  it  is  designed  as 
if  under  the  influence  of  a painter,  or  of  a 
school  of  decorative  painting ; and  yet  the 
lights  and  shades  are  pleasantly  interspersed 
and  intermingled,  and  this  as  one  of  many 
panels  in  a wall  would  be  an  attractive  unit 
enough. 

Of  immeasurably  greater  power  and  range 
are  the  reliefs  on  some  of  the  Roman  sar- 
cophagi ; but  these  have  been  famous,  in- 
deed, for  centuries,  and  have  been  a favorite 
study  of  generations  of  Italian  sculptors. 
For  our  purpose,  however,  a more  interest- 
ing subject  is  contained  in  that  great  up- 
right slab  given  in  Plate  XIV,  which  repre- 
sents the  offering  of  a solemn  sacrifice  by  the 
emperor,  who  is  attended  by  the  high  priest 
of  Jupiter  and  other  attendants.  In  the 
background  is  seen  what  is  probably  meant 
[222] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

for  the  great  temple  of  Jupiter  on  the  Capi- 
toline  Hill.  The  interest  of  the  piece  to 
the  student  of  sculpture  is  in  the  mingling 
of  description  and  a significance  beyond 
mere  description.  This  great  slab  with 
figures  nearly  of  life-size  is  as  inferior  to 
the  Parthenon  bas-reliefs  in  sculpturesque 
treatment  as  it  is  beyond  them  in  its  pre- 
tensions— in  its  range — in  its  attempt  to 
interest  the  world  of  spectators.  Let  us 
say  all  we  can  of  this  Imperial  art  of  the 
second  century,  a.  d.,  for  it  is  modern ; it 
is  the  work  of  a sophisticated,  organized, 
policed  society,  very  like  our  own  in  some 
respects : and  it  is  towards  such  a not 
wholly  admirable  manifestation  of  art  that 
our  twentieth  century  thinking  and  striv- 
ing would  tend,  but  that  the  sculptors  of 
our  time  form  a really  noble  guild  of  art- 
ists, inspired  continually  by  the  study  of 
nature  and  guided  by  the  most  constant 
and  most  intelligent  intercourse  with  the 
great  past.  That  Roman  relief  is  a splendid 
piece  of  ceremonial  record  : now  let  one  of 
our  modern  men  treat  the  great  events  of 
[223] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

our  time  in  a way  as  abstract, — with  as  few 
figures, — in  a form  as  susceptible  of  being 
built  into  a wall : but  with  the  grace  of  the 
Italian  fifteenth  century,  and  the  faultless 
details  of  early  Greece.  There  is  nothing 
contradictory  in  that. 

The  hope  of  any  fine  art  is  in  the  single- 
ness of  purpose  of  its  workmen.  That  pur- 
pose is  nearly  certain  to  be  purely  artistic 
—we  need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  that 
- — few  indeed,  are  the  painters  or  sculptors 
who  trouble  themselves  about  other  than 
artistic  purpose  in  their  work.  What  we 
require  of  them  is,  then,  an  undisturbed 
and  constant  devotion  to  it.  And,  that 
this  may  be  possible  to  the  artist,  the  pub- 
lic must  learn  that  only  artistic  work  is  to 
be  had  from  an  artist,  and  must  really  stop 
asking  him  for  moral  teaching,  and  archae- 
ological information,  and  general  exhorta- 
tion. That  piece  of  sculpture  which,  alone 
among  the  works  even  of  antiquity  is  ac- 
cepted as  equal  in  a later  style  to  the  work 
of  the  Phidians  is  a shattered  and  muti- 
lated trunk  (Plate  LXIV).  No  one  has 
[224] 


Recent  Art  Compared  with  Greek  Standard 

more  than  a tolerable  guess  as  to  the  pose 
in  which  the  godlike  body  was  carved.  It 
is  called  a Hercules,  or  rather  a Herakles, 
and  is  so  entered  in  certain  catalogues, 
chiefly  because  of  the  fragment  on  the  left 
thigh  of  what  is  thought  to  have  been  the 
lion’s  hide.  What  then  ? Whether  it  once 
formed  part  of  a group,  whether  it  is  the 
original  work  of  a contemporary  of  Lysip- 
pos  and  as  great  as  he,  though  the  ancient 
writings  which  we  know  contain  no  mention 
of  him,  whether  it  represents  Polyphemos, 
the  giant  who  loved  Galatea,  as  one  ingeni- 
ous theorist  maintains,  what  matters  it? 
That  which  we  regret  is  not  the  loss  of  the 
identity,  of  the  legend,  of  the  association, 
which  a second  century  Greek  would  have 
with  it : we  miss  the  missing  parts  for  their 
own  sake,  primarily,  and  then  because  we 
need  to  know  what  the  attitude  of  the 
whole  figure  was,  that  we  may  better  under- 
stand each  part.  That  is  what  a sculp- 
tor feels,  when  he  regrets  this  mutilation. 
There  remains  so  much  noble  sculpture 
in  the  shattered  block,  that  our  enquiry 
[225] 


The  Appreciation  of  Sculpture 

may  close  with  it  as  it  opened  with  reliefs 
and  statues  of  the  time  of  Phidias  : pieces 
which  alone  equal  the  Belvedere  Torso  in 
sculpturesque  merit.  It  is  not  probable 
that  any  twentieth  century  man  will  equal 
it  : but  that  merit  is,  after  all,  the  thing  to 
seek.  Even  more  than  sentiment,  even 
more  than  action,  pure  sculpture  is  the  one 
thing  needful. 


[226] 


Index 


Abbeville,  Cathedral  of, 
sculptures,  85 

Abbey  of  Solesmes,  sculptures 
in,  85 

Abundance  of  sculpture  in  an- 
tiquity, 51,  52 

Acropolis  Museum,  votive  re- 
liefs of,  22 

“iEsop,”  statues  so  called,  57 
Albany  State  House  (capitol), 
205 

Alexander  the  Great,  see  Alex- 
andrian period 
Alexandrian  period,  209,  221 
Altar-backs  in  Italy,  94,  95 
Altar  of  Peace,  erected  by  Au- 
gustus, 65 

Amazon  of  the  Berlin  Mu- 
seum, 18 

Amazon,  The  Wounded,  statue 
by  Polykleitos,  18,  19 
Ammanati,  sculptor,  122 
Andromeda,  by  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  112 

Annunciation,  The,  relief  by 
Donatello,  95 

“ Antinous,  ” of  the  Belvedere, 
so-called,  statue  in  the  Vati- 
can, 30,  210 

Aphrodite  of  the  Capitol,  159 
Aphrodite  of  Capua,  40 
Aphrodite  of  Knidos,  48 
Aphrodite  of  Melos,  41,  159, 
219,  (see  also  Venus  of  Milo) 
1 ‘ Apollino,  ’ ’ statue  so-called 
of  the  Uffizi,  20 
Apollo  Belvedere,  statue  so- 
called,  30,  42 

Apollo,  by  Sansovino,  107,  108 
Apoxyomenos,  statue  so- 
called,  in  the  Vatican,  38, 142 


Arc  de  Pfitoile,  Paris  ; relief 
by  Rude,  156 

Archaeology  made  anew  since 
1860,  29 

Archaic  art  leading  to  excel- 
lence, 19,  24 

Architecture  practiced  by 
sculptors,  99,  106,  107,  110, 
120,  121 

Art  of  decoration,  hard  to  re- 
vive, 136 

Art  of  representation  and  ex- 
pression easy  to  revive,  136 

Athens,  best  place  to  study 
relief  sculpture,  23 

Athens,  Temple  of  Athena- 
Nike,  16 

Athlete,  The,  in  Greek  sculp- 
ture, 143 

Athlete  dropping  oil  in  Munich 
Glyptothek,  20 

Athlete  and  Python,  statue  by 
Lord  Leighton,  216 
Au  But  (“At  the  Goal”), 
group  by  Alfred  Boucher, 
143,  217 

Augusta,  Empress,  monument 
to,  at  Berlin,  185 

Bacchus  of  National  Museum 
of  Florence,  by  Sansovino, 
108 

Bacchus  in  polychromy,  12 

Bacchus,  Infant,  with  Hermes, 
32 

Bacchus,  by  Michelangelo, 
98 

Bacchus,  statue  of,  in  Museo 
delle  Terme,  20 

Bacon,  statue  of,  by  Wool- 
ner,  154 


[ 227  ] 


Index 


Badia,  Church  of  the,  Florence; 

sculptures  in,  94 
Bailli,  ideal  portrait  in  relief, 
by  Dalou,  180 

Bandinelli,  Baccio,  sculptor, 
105 

“ Barberini  Faun,’’  so-called 
(sleeping  Satyr) , 38 
Barnard,  George  Gray,  sculp- 
tor, 141 

Barrias,  Louis  Ernest,  sculp- 
tor, 178 

Bartholome,  Albert,  sculptor, 
173 

Bartlett,  Paul  Wayland, 
sculptor,  153 
Barye,  sculptor,  149 
Beasts  in  sculpture,  148-150 
Bellona,  in  relief  by  Rude, 
156 

Bellona,  in  relief  by  Mac 
Monnies,  168 

Benedetto  da  Rovezzano, 
sculptor,  96 

Bernini,  Giovanni  Lorenzo, 
sculptor,  115,  120,  121 
Boitte,  M.,  architect,  170 
Borghese  Gladiator,  statue  in 
Louvre,  219 

Bouchardon,  sculptor,  127 
Boucher,  Frangois,  painter,  128 
Boucher,  Alfred,  sculptor, 
138,  143,  219 

Brattle  Street  Church,  Boston, 
Campanile  of,  204 
Brou,  Church  of,  and  tombs 
in  same,  85 

“Brutus,  Junius,’ ’ statue  so- 
called,  in  Louvre,  54 
Buonarroti,  see  Michelangelo. 

Cain,  Auguste-Nicol  as, 

sculptor,  149,  150 
Campagna  of  Rome,  145 
Campanile  in  Venice,  107 
Campo  Santo  of  Pisa,  90 
Caniez,  sculptor,  151,  152 
Canova,  sculptor,  134 
Cardinal  Mazarin,  tomb  of,  by 
Coysevox,  124 


Carli,  sculptor,  175 
Carpeaux,  J ean  Baptiste, 
sculptor,  157,  158,  160,  175, 
179 

Castellani  Collection,  sculp- 
tures in,  208,  211 
Cavo-rilievo  sculpture,  see 
Coelanaglyphic 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  sculptor, 
105,  111,  112,  114,  117,  122 
Chapel,  Sistine,  Michelangelo 
compelled  to  paint,  106 
Chardin,  painter,  128 
Charity,  on  Tomb  of  Hugo, 
Marquis  of  Tuscany,  95 
Chartres,  Cathedral  of  (Eure 
et  Loir),  74,  76,  78 
Chateau  d’Eau,  of  the  Troca- 
dero,  150 

Cheferen,  statue  of  King,  68 
Christ,  Mother  of,  at  Solesmes 
85 

Christ,  Mother  of  (Mi- 
chelangelo’s Pietfi),  see  Mi- 
chelangelo 

Coelanaglyphic  relief,  69,  70 
Coligny,  monument  of,  by 
Crauk,  153 

Colleone,  equestrian  statue, 
189 

Colomb,  Michel,  sculptor,  83 
Concavo-convex  relief,  see 
Coelanaglyphic 

Conde,  Prince  of,  bust  by 
Coysevox,  125,  152 
Conde,  Prince  of,  bust  at 
Chantilly,  152 

Conde,  Prince  of,  statue  by 
Caniez,  151-153 
Constantine,  arch  of,  73 
Convention  in  sculpture,  see 
also  Nature  and  the  Ideal, 
24,  25,  26,  27,  32,  175 
Convention  in  sculpture  (in 
connection  with  the  horse), 
80-82 

Copies,  ancient,  of  Greek  orig- 
inals, 19,  20,  21 
Coustou,  Nicolas,  sculptor, 
125 


[ 228] 


Index 


Coustou,  William  ( Guil- 
laume), sculptor,  125 

Coustou,  the  youngest  sculp- 
tor, 127 

Coysevox,  sculptor,  123,  124, 
125,  151 

Crauk,  sculptor  (of  Coligni 
monument),  153 


Dalou,  Jules,  sculptor,  180 
Daniel  the  Prophet,  statue  by 
Bernini,  121 

Dans  la  Rue,  group  by  Camille 
Lefevre,  164 

David,  statue  by  Michelangelo, 
98 

David  d’ Angers,  sculptor,  131, 
134 

Dawn,  statue  by  Michelangelo, 
101 

Day,  statue  by  Michelangelo, 

101,  102 

Death,  personified,  Saxe  mon- 
ument, 129 

Death  and  the  sculptor,  see 
Milmore  Monument 
Decadence,  Art  of  the,  see  De- 
cline 

Decadent  art,  see  Decline 
Decline,  art  of  the,  47,  104, 
111-121 

Delacroix,  Eugene,  as  critical 
writer,  14 

“Demosthenes,”  so-called  of 
the  Vatican,  20 
Departure  for  war  (“La  Mar- 
seillaise”), relief  by  Rude, 
155 

Desjardins,  Martin,  sculptor, 

125 

Despair  (Le  Desespoir),  statue 
by  Perraud,  128 
Diadumenos  (fillet-binder), 
statue  so-called,  20 
Diana,  statue  by  Houdon,  131 
Dionysos,  seated,  from  Athens, 
statue  in  British  Museum,  38 
Discobolos,  standing,  of  the 
Vatican,  17 


Disk-thrower  (Discobolos) 
(Myron),  19,  20 
Doge’s  palace  in  Venice,  108 
Donatello,  sculptor,  92,  93,  95, 
HO 

Dore,  Gustave,  painter,  etc., 
sculpture  by,  166 
Dory  phoros  ( spear  bearer ) , 
statue  so-called,  20,  141 
Drapery,  Greek,  25,  26,  36, 
37,  49 

Drapery,  Roman,  49,  58,  61 
Dress  conventionalized  (see 
also  Drapery),  53,  58,  76, 
163 

Dress,  fashion  of,  in  historical 
sculpture,  53,  61,  156,  157, 
167,  168,  180,  181 
Dress,  fashion  of,  in  Portrait- 
ure, 59,  60 

Dress,  ideal  military,  171 
Driller,  The,  statue  by  Nie- 
haus,  141,  142 

Dubois,  Paul,  sculptor,  170, 
206 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  monument 
to,  166 

Duret,  sculptor,  134 

Edfoo,  temple  of,  69,  70 
Eighteenth  century,  sculptors 
of,  127 

Eighteenth  century  in  sculp- 
ture, 127 

Egypt,  early  sculpture  of,  66, 
67 

Elders  of  the  Apocalypse,  at 
Chartres,  76 

1 1 Epictetus,  ’ ’ statue  so-called, 
57 

Epidauros,  fragments  from,  16 
Erechtheion,  caryatides  of,  17 
“Euripides,”  so-called  of  the 
Villa  Albani,  20 
Eve  entering  on  Life,  statue 
by  Paul  Dubois,  206 

Falconet,  sculptor,  127 
Faith  (La  Foi),  statue  by  Paul 
Dubois,  172 


[229] 


Index 


Farnese  Hercules,  statue,  136 
Farragut  monument,  196,  206 
Farragut  monument,  reliefs  on 
base,  196 

Fenway  at  Boston,  monument 
in,  182 

Ferdinand,  Duke,  equestrian 
statue  of,  118 

Fiesole,  Cathedral  at,  sculp- 
tures in,  95 

Flamboyant  gothic  sculpture, 
83-86 

Flemish  influence  in  Franoe 
and  elsewhere,  84 
Fountain  in  Boboli  Garden, 
by  G.  da  Bologna,  118 
Four  Quarters  of  the  World, 
The,  group  by  Carpeaux, 
157,  179 

Francis  I,  King  of  France,  111 
Frederick  the  Great,  purchased 
Pigalle’s  Mercury,  128 
Frederick  the  Great,  preferred 
modern  costume,  155 
Freedman,  statuette  by  J.  Q. 

A.  Ward,  160 
Fremiet,  sculptor,  150 
French.  Daniel  C.,  sculptor, 
182,  183,  184 

Gai,  Antonio,  sculptor,  107 
Gallaudet  teaching  the  deaf 
mute,  184 
Garibaldi,  172 

Garibaldi,  equestrian  statue 
of,  188 

Gaspard  de  Coligny,  monu- 
ment to,  153 

Genius  of  France,  in  Saxe 
monument,  129 
Germanicus,  statue  so-called  in 
Lateran,  54,  57,  210,  211 
Gerome,  Jean  Leon,  portrait 
head  of,  179 

Giants’  Stairs  in  Venice,  The, 
108 

Girolamo  da  Ferrara,  sculptor, 
107 

Giovanni  da  Bologna,  115, 
119,  120 


Giugni,  Bernardo,  tomb  of,  95 
Giuliano  (Duke  of  Nemours), 
by  Michelangelo,  99,  101 
Gjolbaschi,  frieze  of,  see  Trysa 
Gothic  sculpture  (thirteenth 
century),  78-80,  83 
Gracchi,  The,  group  by  Guil- 
laume, 145 

Greco-Roman  period,  27 
Greek  original  reliefs,  15,  16 
Greek  original  statues,  17,  18, 
19 

Greek  tradition,  55 
Greeley,  Horace,  monument 
to,  by  Ward,  178 
Greenough,  sculptor,  155 
Gugliehno  della  Porta,  sculp- 
tor, 105 

Guillaume,  sculptor,  145 

Hellenistic  reliefs,  221 
Herakles  (Greek  hero),  in 
sculpture,  139,  see  Torso  of 
the  Belvedere 

Herculaneum,  bronze  female 
statues  from,  18 
Hercules  killing  the  centaur, 
by  G.  da  Bologna,  118 
Hermes  of  Andros,  in  Athens 
Museum,  34 

Hermes,  see  also  Mercury 
“Hermes,”  of  the  Belvedere, 
see  Antinous 

Hermes  of  Olympia,  18,  24, 
29,  32,  33,  34,  210 
Hermes  of  Praxiteles,  see 
Hermes  of  Olympia 
Hermes  in  polychromy,  12 
Hewer,  The,  statue  by  Nie- 
haus,  141.  142 
Horse  in  sculpture,  80-82 
Houdon,  Jean  Antoine,  sculp- 
tor, 127,  131,  132 
Hugo  (Marquis  of  Tuscany), 
tomb  of,  95 

Ilissos,  see  statues  from 
Parthenon 

II  Pensieroso  (The  Thinker), 
statue  by  Michelangelo,  102 


[230] 


Index 


Indian  hunter,  statue  by  J.  Q. 
A.  Ward,  161 

Inferior  races,  sculpture  rep- 
senting  them,  38,  39,  142, 
161,  197,  198 
Isocephalic  principle,  82 
Italian  revival  influences  the 
north,  87,  88 

Italian  revival,  its  beginning, 
89-91,  122 

Jacopo  della  Quercia,  96,  110 
Jacquemart,  sculptor,  150 
John  of  Bologna,  see  Giovanni 
da  Bologna 

John  of  Douay,  see  Giovanni 
da  Bologna 

Joseph  of  Arimathea,  statue 
at  Solesmes,  85 
Juchault  de  la  Moriciere,  tomb 
of,  at  Nantes,  170,  206 
Julien,  sculptor,  134 
Justice  in  relief  by  Mino  da 
Fiesole,  95 

Kaunitz,  statue  of,  194,  195 

La  Danaide,  statuette  by 
Rodin,  144 

La  Moriciere,  see  Juchault 
Laokoon,  group,  in  the  Vati- 
can, 39 

Lefeuvre,  Albert,  sculptor,  163 
Lefevre,  Camille,  sculptor,  164 
Le  Grand  Cond6,  statue  by 
Caniez,  151 

Le  Gros,  Pierre,  sculptor,  125 
Leibnitz,  statue  of,  at  Oxford, 
154 

Leighton,  Lord,  sculptor,  216, 
217 

Lemaire,  sculptor,  134 
Le  Moyne,  Jean  Baptiste, 
sculptor,  127 

Library  Saint  Mark,  in  Venice, 
109,  202 

Loggetta  of  Campanile  at 
Venice,  107,  108 
Lorenzo  (Duke  of  Urbino), 


tomb  of,  by  Michelangelo, 
99,  100,  101 

Louis  XV,  epoch  of,  128 
Luca  della  Robbia,  92,  93, 110 
Lycia,  lion  tombs  of,  78 

MacMonnies,  Feedeeick 
W.,  sculptor,  167 
McKim,  Mead  & White,  archi- 
tects, 196 

Madonna  group,  by  Sansovino, 
108 

Madonna,  relief  by  Mino  da 
Fiesole,  94 

Madonna,  by  Michelangelo,  at 
Bruges,  98 

Madonna  and  Child,  in  bas- 
relief,  by  Mino  da  Fiesole, 
96 

Magdalen,  85 

Marcus  Aurelius,  sacrificing, 
alto-relief,  60 

Marcus  Aurelius,  equestrian 
statue  of,  188-222 
Maria  Theresia,  Empress,  mon- 
ument to,  194-196 
Marquis  de  Dreux-Brez6,  in 
relief  by  Dalou,  180 
Mars,  by  Sansovino,  108 
1 ‘ Mars  Borghese,  ’ ’ so-called, 
statue  in  Louvre,  17 
Mausoleum  at  Halicarnassus, 
78 

Medicean  monuments,  by  Mi- 
chelangelo, 99 

Medicean  Venus,  see  Venus  of 
the  Medici 

Medici,  tombs  of  the,  in  S. 

Lorenzo,  Florence,  97 
Medusa,  see  Perseus 
“ Mercury  ” statue  so-called  in 
British  Museum,  30 
Mercury,  Flying,  by  Gio- 
vanni da  Bologna,  116 
Mercury  tying  his  sandal, 
statue  by  Pigalle,  128 
Metopes  of  Parthenon,  15 
Metopes  of  Theseion,  16 
Michelangelo,  sculptor,  96,  97. 
98,  99,  100,  101,  102,  104^ 


[231] 


Index 


105,  106,  108,  109,  110,  111, 
116,  122,  153,  175 
Michelangelo,  statue  by  Paul 
Way  land  Bartlett,  153 
Michel,  Claude  (Clodion), 
sculptor,  127 

Milan  Cathedral,  statues  on 
pinnacles,  51 

Military  Courage,  statue  by 
Paul  Dubois,  170,  183 
Milmore  tombstone,  by  D.  C. 
French,  184 

Minerva,  by  Sansovino,  108 
Mino  di  Giovanni  da  Fiesole, 
93,  94,  95,  96,  110 
Mirabeau,  ideal  portrait  of,  in 
relief,  by  Dalou,  181 
Modelling,  qualities  of,  214- 
217 

Moliere,  126,  193,  194 
Moliere,  fountain  of,  in  Paris, 
193 

Montorsoli,  sculptor,  105 
Monument  to  the  Dead,  work 
of  Bartholome,  172 
Moses  of  the  Tomb  of  Julius 
II,  by  Michelangelo,  98 
Movement,  expression  of  in 
sculpture,  143,  144 
Muscular  development,  exag- 
geration of,  139 


Nature,  study  of,  136 
Nature  and  the  Ideal,  see  also 
Convention,  140,  174 
Neptune,  by  Sansovino,  108 
Nereid  monument,  at  Xanthos, 
slabs  from,  16 

Nereid  monument,  at  Xanthos, 
statues  from,  17 
New  Sacristy,  see  Nuova  Sa- 
grestia 

Newton,  statue  of,  154 
Niehaus,  Charles,  141,  142 
Night,  statue  by  Michelangelo, 
101 

Nike,  sculptures  in  Temple  of 
Athens,  23 

Nike,  statues  of,  see  Victory 


Niobide  of  the  Chiaramonti 
Museum,  36,  49 
Niobide  group  in  Florence,  36 
Nude  statues,  female,  157-160 
Nude  statues,  female,  not  in 
early  art,  49 

Nuova  Sagrestia  of  S.  Lorenzo, 
Florence,  99 

O’Reilly,  John  Boyle, 
monument  to,  by  French, 
182,  193 

Painting  of  Greek  sculpture, 
12,  13 

Pajou,  sculptor,  127 
Pallas-Athene,  in  Dresden 
Museum,  20 

Parthenon,  alto  reliefs  from, 
15 

Parthenon,  bas-reliefs  from, 
15,  21,  23,  81,  223 
Parthenon,  frieze  of,  see  Par- 
thenon bas-reliefs 
Parthenon,  metopes  of,  see 
Parthenon  alto-reliefs 
Parthenon  pediment,  see  Par- 
thenon, statues  of 
Parthenon  sculptures,  175, 
200,  210 

Parthenon  statues  of  Pedi- 
ments, 17,  24,  26,  34,  49, 
210,  215 

Pausanias,  ancient  traveller, 
90 

Pedestals,  often  too  high,  186- 
190 

Perraud,  J.  J.,  sculptor,  128 
Perseus,  by  Benvenuto  Cellini, 
112,  113,  114 
Phidian  epoch,  36 
Phidians,  The,  224 
Phidias,  18,  19,  27,  49,  209, 
226 

Phigalia,  frieze  of,  16 
Philopoemen,  statue  by  David 
d’ Angers,  132 

Pieta  of  Florence,  by  Mi- 
chelangelo, 98 


[232] 


Index 


Pieta  of  St.  Peter's  Church, 
Michelangelo,  97 
Pigalle,  Jean  Baptiste,  sculp- 
tor, 127,  128,  129 
Pilon,  Germain,  117,  122 
Pisano,  Niccola,  called  first 
modern  sculptor,  90 
Pisan,  brought  ancient  sculp- 
tures from  abroad,  90 
Pistoja,  Church  of  St.  John,  92 
Placing  of  statues,  48,  49 
Polychromy  in  natural  ma- 
terial, 12 

Polykleitos,  sculptor,  27 
Portrait  statues,  54,  58,  195, 
197 

Portraiture,  ideal,  151-155, 180 
Portraiture  in  sculpture,  54, 
56,  57,  58,  125,  177-179 
Powers,  Hiram,  sculptor,  134 
Pradier,  James,  sculptor,  194 
Praxiteles,  sculptor,  11,  27, 
37,  49,  209 

Prieur,  Bartholome,  sculptor, 
117, 122 

Racers,  The,  see  Au  But 
Ra  Hotep  and  wife,  Nefert, 
statues  in  Gizeh  Museum, 
67 

Rape  of  the  Sabines,  by  Gio- 
vanni da  Bologna,  118 
Raphael  da  Montelupo,  sculp- 
tor, 105 

Reims  Cathedral,  statues  of, 
80,  175 

Relief  sculpture,  monumental, 
191,  196 

Reliefs,  ancient,  always  orig- 
inals, never  copies,  21 
Reliefs,  ancient,  important  to 
students,  23 

Reliefs,  Greek,  most  abundant 
in  Athens,  23 

Renaissance,  see  Revival,  Ris- 
orgimento 

“Renaissance,"  Francis  I, 
called  “ Great  King  of  the,  ” 
87 

Revival  of  about  1850,  130 


Revival  in  tenth  century,  73 
Revival  in  fifteenth  century, 
see  Italian  Revival 
Rhind,  J.  Massey,  sculptor, 
197,  202,  203 

Ricord,  Dr.,  portrait  statue  of, 
by  Barrias,  178 
Risen  Christ,  of  the  Church  of 
S.  Maria  Sopra  Minerva, 
Michelangelo,  98 
Risorgimento,  the,  90,  91,  109,, 
121,  210 

Rodin,  Auguste,  144,  217 
Rogers,  Samuel,  quotation 
from,  103 
Roman  copies,  51 
Roman  decorative  sculpture, 
62,  63,  64,  65 

Romanesque  sculpture,  73-77 
Roman  sculpture  as  a record, 
72 

Roman  sculpture  distinguished 
from  Greek,  53,  54 
Rossellino,  sculptor,  96,  110 
Rude,  Francois,  sculptor,  134, 
154,  156,  167 

Sabine  woman,  seizure  of,  by 
G.  da  Bologna,  119 
Saint  Ambrogio,  Church  of  in 
Milan,  sculptures  in,  95 
Saint  Gaudens,  Augustus, 
sculpture,  196 

St.  James,  by  Sansovino,  108 
Saint  John  Baptist  of  the  Bar- 
gello,  by  Michelangelo,  98 
St.  Julian,  by  Sansovino,  108 
Saint  Matthew,  by  Mi- 
chelangelo, 98 

Saint  Veronica  and  the  Image 
of  Christ,  175 

Saint  Riquier,  statues  on 
Church  of,  85 
Salon  of  1781,  jury  of,  131 
San  Leonardo,  in  relief  by 
Mino  da  Fiesole,  94 
San  Lorenzo,  in  relief  by 
Mino  da  Fiesole,  94 
Sansovino,  Jacopo,  sculpture, 
105, 


[233] 


Index 


106,  107,  109,  110,  111,  122, 

124 

Santa  Croce,  Church  of,  in 
Florence  ; sculptures  in,  95 
Santa  Maria  del  Popolo, 
church  of,  in  Rome,  sculp- 
tures in,  95 

Saxe,  Marshal,  tomb  of,  by 
Pigalle,  129 

Scale,  differences  in,  196 
Schaper,  H.  W.  F.,  sculptor, 
185 

Schliitter,  Andreas,  sculptor, 

125 

Scraper,  The,  statue  by  Nie- 
haus,  142 

Sculpture  antique,  excellent 
in  modelling,  209,  210 
Sculpture,  pictorial  (reliefs), 
221,  222 

Sculpture  of  rapid  movement, 
143,  144,  218 

Sculpture,  recent,  its  different 
qualities,  211 

Sculpture,  recent,  of  the 
whole  figure  and  of  the  de- 
tail, 212-214 

Sculpture  added  to  buildings, 
(see  Parthenon,  Nereid  Mon- 
ument), 61,  74-80,  199-204 
Sculpture,  monumental,  pos- 
sibilities of,  205,  206 
Sculpture,  architectural,  little 
understood  in  recent  times, 
204 

Sculpture,  symbolism  in,  157, 
168,  172,  183,  196 
Sculpture,  monumental,  re- 
quirements of,  186-194 
Sculpture  of  distorted  atti- 
tude, 144 

Sculpture,  first  art  to  decay,  71 
Sculpture,  recent,  classification 
of,  137,  138 

Sculpture  of  sentiment,  92, 
93,  151,  166,  182 
Sculpture  of  sentiment  (Loy- 
alty), 185,  186 

Sculpture  of  sentiment  (Re- 
ligion), 175,  176 


Sculpture  of  sentiment 
(Death),  173 

Sculpture,  when  consciously 
imitated,  134,  135 
Sculpture,  times  of  feebleness, 

133 

Sculpture,  times  of  bad  taste, 

134 

Seneca,  statues  so-called,  57 
Sentiment,  see  Sculpture  of 
sentiment 

Seurre,  Bernard  Gabriel, 
sculptor,  194 

Seventeenth  century,  bad  time 
for  sculpture,  125 
Shaw,  Robert  Gould,  monu- 
ment to,  by  St.  Gaudens, 
191,  193 

Sherman  monument  (eques- 
trian statue),  192,  193 
Simart,  sculptor,  134 
Skopas,  27,  37,  49 
Solesmes,  sculptures  at,  85 
‘ ‘ Sophocles,  ’ ’ so-called  of  the 
Lateran  Museum,  20 
Stele  of  Mynno,  in  Berlin  Mu- 
seum, 16 

Symbolical  sculpture,  see 
Sculpture,  Symbolism  in 


Tassaert,  sculptor,  127 
Tatti,  Jacopo,  see  Sansovino 
Terminal  statues,  63 
Theatre  Franyais,  statue  of 
Voltaire  in,  131 
Theseion,  metopes  of,  16 
Theseus,  see  Statues  from  Par- 
thenon 

Theseus  killing  a centaur,  see 
Hercules 

Thomas,  equestrian  statue,  by 
J.  Q.  A.  Ward,  190 
Torso  of  the  Belvedere,  39, 
219,  226 

Trajan,  reliefs  on  column  of, 
72 

Trajan,  reliefs  from  arch  of,  53 
Trocad£ro  Palace,  150 
Trysa,  bounding  wall  of,  78 


[234] 


Index 


Trysa  (modem  Gjolbaschi), 
frieze  of,  16 

Twentieth  century,  sculpture 
more  promising  than  archi- 
tecture, 133 

Twilight,  statue  by  Mi- 
chelangelo, 101 

Uffizi,  Museum  at  Florence, 
91 


Vasaki,  biographer,  90 
Vasse  sculptor,  134 
Velasquez,  painter,  115 
Venus,  see  Aphrodite 
Venus  of  Arles,  47 
Venus  of  the  Capitol,  46,  48 
Venus  of  the  Medici,  42,  47, 
48 

Venus  of  Milo,  statue  so-called, 
in  Louvre,  40,  43,  44,  45, 
47,  48,  see  also  Aphrodite  of 
Melos 

Verocchio,  110 

Victory  of  Paionios,  statue  at 
Olympia,  17,  24-38 


Victory  of  Samothrace,  statue 
in  Louvre,  38 

Victory  (winged),  at  Brescia, 
40,  41 

Victory  in  modern  relief,  168 
Victory  type,  17,  38,  40,  41 
Visconti,  architect,  194 
Visitation,  The,  group  by  Luca 
della  Robbia,  92 
Voltaire,  statue  of,  131 
Von  Hasenauer,  Karl,  Frei- 
herr, architect,  194 
Votive  reliefs,  Greek,  22 

WALL-tombs  of  eighteenth 
century,  129 

Wall-tombs,  in  Italy,  fifteenth 
century,  94,  96 
Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  sculptor,  160, 
161,  178,  190 

Washington,  statue  by  Craw- 
ford, 155 

Zeus,  temple  of,  at  Olympia, 
19 

Zumbusch,  Kaspar,  sculptor, 


[235] 


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